#Hiro finally made his first friend who's his age and with no help from anyone else | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

greensword101 · 4 years ago

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My secret santa was @freedom-barricades-bighero16! I am so sorry for the late gift, I tried to finish yesterday, but I had a sudden case of vertigo. But I am pleased with the final product and I hope you are as well. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

“No…” Hiro murmured again, balled up the paper and tossed it over his shoulder. He barely heard the thud of paper hitting paper; no doubt wondering that the wastebasket would need to be emptied again. He combed a hand through his tousled, jet-black hair and slipped another sheet of paper in front of him. The pencil scratched for a few minutes as he worked out what he wanted to draw before discouragement overcame him again and he crumbled the paper and threw it away without a second glance. He dared a glance at the clock and wanted to bang his head against the desk ad nauseum.

Wow. Washed up at fourteen. So sad. He almost heard the rustle of paper from behind before he remembered and scrunched up his eyes to keep the tears from forming. Tadashi wasn’t here to help him now, and he never would ever again. But it helped at times to think of what he would say were they living in a better world. It was effective when thinking of an idea, but every time he tried to imagine Tadashi’s voice now, it would not come to him. He tried to think of what he would say now, what sort of wisdom he would try to impart on Hiro, but he wasn’t sure if Tadashi had ever given him advice on a girl before.

Aunt Cass would be after his hide again if he didn’t put himself into bed, Hiro knew. Bitterness filled his mouth, and it was all he could do to not throw something. Instead, he pushed himself away from his desk and collapsed onto his bed in a dead heap, not bothering to change into pajamas. He just laid there, prone and tired. Seven days until Christmas, he told himself, another year without you, Big Brother.

He wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he knew that he hadn’t been underneath his blankets earlier. Now, Mochi was resting, curled up on Hiro’s stomach and a glance at his alarm told him it was just before eight o’clock in the morning. He managed to trudge his way downstairs for breakfast, still groggy with sleep as the hustle and clamor of the café washed over him. Aunt Cass had a plate of eggs and bacon set up for him at a single table with a tall glass of orange juice, which he began to wolf down fervently.

“How’s your little project going?” Aunt Cass asked. His mouth full of food, Hiro took a large swig of juice before he could respond.

“It’s…it’s going bad,” he said bluntly, “I got nothing that might work, and Christmas is in a few days.”

“You could always buy your Secret Santa a gift,” Aunt Cass suggested.

That would work…but I don’t it would be good enough. If it was anyone else he had to get a present for, Hiro would have leapt at the chance to go shopping. But he knew that it had to special, it had to be meaningful since it was coming from him. Tadashi still managed to get him one last Christmas gift even after passing on and it was a meaningful gift that he hoped to cherish for years. For Karmi, it had to be meaningful too.

But what could he get for her that wouldn’t come off as saying Hey, here’s a nice present for you? What’s that? Why does it have your initials engraved into it? It’s because I wanted to show off how much I like you now. Would she like jewelry? He never saw her wearing anything flashy, even during parties. Would she be alright with a stuffed toy? Hiro wasn’t certain if Karmi kept anything plushy around at her age. And what if she didn’t like the gift? Would that mean she would make fun of his efforts?

Suddenly, his appetite left him all at once. He pushed his plate away and looked down into his lap. What was he supposed to come up with in a few days as a gift? Bells jingled as the entrance was opened and a jangle of voices came in with it. He could pick out a few of them, but the noise swallowed up the words too fast for him to follow. Thankfully, Fred was never capable of keeping his voice ‘room appropriate’ and that was the one Hiro was able to focus on.

“Come on, Wasabi! You gotta admit this was my best idea ever!”

“Fred,” Wasabi drawled, “All you did was tape mistletoe to a hat and wear it all day.”

“That didn’t stop you from kissing me!”

Wasabi chuckled deeply, “I guess it didn’t. Hey, little man. Feeling the reason for the season, yet?”

Hiro turned around and had to hold back a snort of laughter. Fred had decided that a fishing hat was most appropriate for his idea. The mistletoe dangled dangerously close to the edge and had a little strip of scotch tape keeping it there. Wasabi decided to wear a dark green, short-sleeved shirt with a Christmas tree embroidered into it instead of his usual sweater.

“Not really,” he admitted and noticed the two of them flushed, “Are you two feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” Wasabi’s voice went up a pitch as he replied, “We’re…we’re good. Really good –”

“Wasabi finally kissed me!” Fred shoved his face close to Hiro’s. He pointed to his hat, “I wish I knew sooner! I’m gonna wear this every year, now!”

“Huh?” It took a moment for Hiro to register what Fred had said, “Oh! Congrats, guys. Maybe you can double date with Honey Lemon and Go Go…”

“Or, we could triple date!” Fred smiled broadly. Hiro looked at him oddly and Fred rolled his eyes, “You know…us, them, you and…”

“It’s not a thing, alright?” Hiro grimaced, “It is certainly not a thing and I don’t think it will be a thing, ever. Forget I asked.” He made to stand up, thinking that Fred would take the hint and drop the matter.

“You’re her Secret Santa, aren’t you?” Hiro stared at him incredulously and Fred just smiled, “Just because I love comic books doesn’t mean I can’t notice these things, little dude.”

Hiro looked around quickly in case he caught sight of someone who shouldn’t have been listening. He looked at Fred, feeling exhausted just looking at his friend now, “You got me. Luckiest guy on Earth. Just a few days till Christmas and I got nothing to show for it.”

Wasabi looked sympathetically at him, “Is there anything we could do to help, Hiro?”

“Not unless you could pull a time machine out of Fred’s hat so I could get back to the start of the month and have more time to get something made for her.”

“I’m serious,” Wasabi grabbed a nearby chair and dragged it over to Hiro’s table. Hiro reluctantly took his place back at his own seat while Fred leaned over Wasabi’s shoulders like a monkey. “So, you still don’t have a gift yet. You can go simple.”

“Simple? For Karmi?” Hiro was incredulous, “Like, what? Show up at her house dressed as…” He did a quick scan around the café before leaning in and whispering, “You know…”

Both men looked at each other and grinned. Hiro gulped nervously; he was used to seeing Fred smile with impish delight, he just didn’t have any idea how scary Wasabi looked with the same kind of intent on his face. Before he could begin to protest, Fred took hold of his arms while Wasabi seized his legs and hoisted the boy into the air. He tried to kick and squirm in their grip, but it was iron clad. They carried him upstairs and into the first floor.

“What are you doing?!” Hiro felt Fred release his grip on his arms and found himself dangling upside down.

“We’re doing this in Tadashi’s stead,” Wasabi was supposed to be the one convincing Fred not to pull crazy stunts, not encouraging them! That was their dynamic. “Just do your thing, little man, and look for a new angle.”

Hiro stopped struggling and allowed himself to dangle, hoping that an idea would come before all the blood went to his head. He trusted that Wasabi wouldn’t let him fall to the hard floor, and he had to trust that he and Fred were on the right track. Baymax couldn’t do something like this for him; lifting a ton in weight didn’t mean that his body was able to do “looking for a new angle” safely without letting Hiro get hurt. It would have gone against his protocol altogether to let someone in his care get hurt.

Protocol…help…Hiro’s eyes lit up with inspiration and he let out a loud whoop of delight that almost had Wasabi dropping Hiro.

“I got it!” He cheered as Wasabi righted him and barreled into the larger man’s chest, hugging him as tightly as he could, “Thanks, Wasabi! I needed that!”

“Hey, what about me!” Fred pouted. Hiro turned to him and threw his arms around Fred’s neck, threatening to choke him. He made a dash for upstairs, “Gotta go, guys! Feel free to bum around!”

The moment he got into his bedroom, Hiro swept away the mess off his desk with one arm and laid down a large sheet of paper, taking careful measurements for the designs and hoping that Karmi would like it…

(0-0)

Karmi felt the beginnings of an agonizing headache coming upon her. It always happened when she was stressed or failed to get enough sleep. This was one of those times and no drink or medicine would prevent it from overcoming her at any rate. The best remedy was to usually fall asleep, but Christmas was almost here, and her gift still wasn’t ready yet! In any case, sleep was for the weak and weary. Karmi wasn’t weak or weary and she had faced more dangers than any sixteen-year-old ought to. It had taken much pleading with her parents and the crime rate in San Fransokyo to go down before they decided to move back. Now that she was home, she wasn’t going to waste a gift like that.

She looked down at her work and frowned. Half-finished patterns, torn pieces of fabric, and loose string caked her worktable. It was always in such an orderly state that Karmi wanted to tear her hair out in frustration. Part of her missed the days where she would recline on the couch and watch Christmas specials as a kid, free of worry or care for serious work while she cherished the sparce days away from school. School was never a happy place for her, truthfully. And it had taken three years of pleading with her parents before they conceded and hired tutors to come to the house. But all she did was exchange bullies for loneliness and Karmi had taken to writing and sewing to dull the ache.

It hadn’t come easy at first; her fingers bled from needlepoints and her hands struggled to create what she would imagine in her mind. The struggle still persisted to this day, but Karmi had learned simple tricks and techniques that made her projects easier. She just prayed that it would help her now as she struggled a few days before her gift needed to be made. Why couldn’t she find an idea that would stick?

Karmi wasn’t always nice to Hiro when they met. In fact, she had been overtly hostile, reeling back from the new threat that had made itself known in SFIT. He was the parasite to her ambitions as he took the honor of youngest student to ever enroll away from her. But, like swimming for a long period in cold water, she had grown used to the boy. In fact, she began to see him as a friend before the crisis with Sycorax forced her to move away. Returning briefly for the summer made her realize how much she missed Hiro. It had been like an early Christmas present when her parents told her that they’d be moving back to the city.

Part of her wished she got a chance to know Hiro more personally. She couldn’t think of anything she knew of the boy regarding personal interests. All she knew was that he was intelligent, cheeky, headstrong, stubborn, liked hanging out with talking robots and that he was the younger brother to the Legend of SFIT. How was she supposed to make a gift based on that alone?

Her head felt like someone had crammed a large bell inside of her head now and was ringing it endlessly. She tried pinching the edge of her palm to delay it, but all she rewarded herself with was more pain. Some part of her wanted to go to find Hiro and ask to see Baymax for help. There must be some protocol in his databanks that could help her deal with her headache…

Her eyes widened with realization and the dull agony in her head was briefly forgotten. A smile crept up on her face as she cleared off her table of waste and debris before laying down a fresh sheet of paper. The measurements had to be precise, she knew it. She wasn’t used to making anything from scratch before, there was usually a reference for her to go by. That thought brought cold prickles to her toes, but she brushed it aside.

As the process continued, her movements became less halted and smoother, like grooving into a fresh block of wood. Her hesitations had lessened, and new thoughts came to mind as she created the patterns for the plushie. And she knew that when Hiro caught sight of her gift to him, it would be a Merry Christmas indeed.

(0-0)

The music was pleasantly mellow and quiet a few days later in the large Exposition Hall of SFIT. Hiro had a fierce battle with his hair earlier that evening, fighting to untangle the gnarls and knots that had been developing overtime unattended. It had taken over an hour before it was decidedly flat and malleable for a comb to attend to. He decided to dress in a red dress shirt with a dark green tie and a pair of black slacks. Fred had suggested he wear a mistletoe on his head, but Hiro had dismissed the idea. He wasn’t going to willingly invite the mockery and teasing of others.

Fred and Wasabi were already there, arms linked together and laughing at something Honey Lemon was saying. She was with Go Go, who had decided to wear a formal suit like Hiro’s, but with a green shirt instead of a red one. Honey Lemon was dressed in a lemon-yellow dress that ended just below her knees. Fred and Wasabi were dressed as alike as a cat was a dog; Wasabi had a black bowtie while Fred had a white tie. Wasabi had a white dress shir Fred wore a black sweater.

Somehow, a pang of jealousy hit Hiro and he tried not to show it. He looked at Baymax warningly in case the robot decided to announce his emotional readings to the rest of world.

“Hiro!” Honey was the first to see him and glomped him, planting a peck on each cheek as they embraced. Once, that would have had his cheeks flaming, but now he just smiled and chuckled. Honey Lemon saw the roll of paper he held under one arm, “Is that your Secret Santa gift, Hiro?”

“Maybe,” Hiro chuckled nervously and tried finding Karmi’s face in the crowd, “I actually need to go find them right now. Catch you later!” And with that, he ran off into the crowd, muttering apologies and pardons to each person he accidentally rammed himself into.

Karmi slowly entered the hall just a moment later, holding a sloppily wrapped bundle in her arms. She was dressed in silvery and gold with long sleeves that ended just below her knees with a blue scarf draped around her shoulder. She had been hoping to see Hiro at the entrance when she came in, but only found his group of friends instead. She looked to Honey Lemon, the one she was most familiar with, “Hey, have you seen Hiro? …not that I’m interested in seeing him or anything, just wanted to know where he was so I could um…not be near him…?” Her smile in the end would have frightened children if they dared to look at her.

Go Go half smiled, “Try the crowd he just bodysurfed into. You might catch him there.”

Karmi looked at the audience of people with trepidation before her eyes hardened with resolve, “Wish me luck, everyone. I’m going fishing!”

“When you come back with Hiro, be sure to bring some sushi!” Fred called out to her as she entered the mob, cradling her present protectively. Wasabi looked at him funnily and Fred shrugged, “What? I’m hungry!”

“How about my lips? You hungry for them?” Wasabi pressed his lips lightly against Fred’s.

Fred’s face burned as he took a hold of the front of Wasabi’s shirt and began to drag his boyfriend away, “Um…excuse me, we need some privacy.” Wasabi’s eyes widened with surprise for a moment before he shrugged and let Fred carry him away without protest.

“Pardon me. Excuse me. Coming through. Really sorry! Nice dress. Love your shoes, wear them more often!” Hiro danced through the crowd, hopping on one foot to the next as he tried to catch a glimpse of Karmi. Hindsight told him that he should have just waited by the entrance or had Baymax scan the room for any sign of her. Stubbornness told him that determination rewarded the daring. His stomach told him that the food at the snack table must be worth skipping out earlier at home.

Meanwhile, Karmi was on the verge of screaming that she had a dangerous bacterium in her hands at the top of her lungs. If it didn’t get her thrown out of the party, quarantined or crushed under a frenzied mob, then it would allow some breathing room for her to move around with ease. She clutched her present tightly, horrified of dropping it to the floor and having some careless foot smash it underneath. After all of those hours of sewing, stitching, and nursing pricks on her finger, Karmi was not going to let it be demolished so easily. Someone bumped into her from behind and Karmi tightened her grip on her gift as she hit the floor.

Someone else tumbled to the floor next to her with a grunt and the crinkling of paper. Karmi got to her feet, reaching down to help the stranger to their feet when she saw that it was Hiro.

“Hiro?”

“Karmi!”

Hiro looked at her outstretched hand for a moment and hastily pulled himself to his feet. They sheepishly tried to avoid looking directly at one another. A moment of courage came to them at the same time and they both noticed how red their faces were. Hiro tried telling himself that it was pretty warm inside. Karmi dismissed what she saw as a trick of the light.

“Nice dress,” Hiro muttered weakly.

“Good color coordination,” Karmi mumbled in reply.

They stared at each other for a few more moments, trying to find the right words to say. They both tried desperately not to let the other see what they were holding in their hands.

“It’s kind of cramped,” Hiro observed, “Snack bar should have some more room.”

“Yeah!” Karmi eagerly leapt at the invitation, “Snacks! I’m hungry!”

They managed their way to the snack bar without difficulty before they both realized that their hands were linked together. Neither of them pushed away from the touch.

Give her the gift, Hiro thought to himself as he eagerly snacked on a plate of pigs in a blanket. This is the best chance you have, just give it to her already.

Shove it into his face and have him open it already! Karmi slowly nibbled on some cheese and crackers, barely tasting them at all. Just do it now.

“Hiro…”

“Karmi…”

They both looked at each other.

“You first,” Hiro smiled nervously.

Karmi flushed and fiddled with the gift in her hands, “I…some party, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t gone to a lot, to be honest,” Hiro rubbed the back of his neck, “Last time I went, the dance got cut off because of High Voltage. I thought Megan was going to get hurt…”

“Megan?” Karmi tried to keep the terror out of her voice.

Hiro looked at her with wide eyes and hastily added, “She’s just a friend! A friend with a really crazy cop for a dad…who wanted to hook up with Aunt Cass.”

Karmi winced, “Are they still seeing each other?”

Hiro’s smile grew mischievous, “They haven’t been on a date since Aunt Cass learned he was being a…”

“Jerk?” Karmi suggested.

“Yeah. A jerk.”

Karmi looked at her present and grew determined, “Hiro, I wanted to…”

“Karmi, I…”

“Merry Christmas,” they both said at once, shoving their gifts forward, eyes wide shut and braced for impact. When they both braved a look, however, they each stared in silence at what was being offered to one another.

“You first,” Hiro held out his gift to her, looking more fourteen than Karmi had ever seen him. She took the roll of paper from him and hastily gave him her poorly wrapped gift in exchange. She undid the wrapping and unrolled it. When she looked inside, Karmi saw a small Chibi design of herself looking back at her on blueprint. Measurements were inscribed as well as features that would be included in it. Her own personal aid in the lab, meant to be programmed with features to help keep her projects safe and monitored.

“It’s not finished yet,” Hiro murmured apologetically, “This is the final draft I made and it’s going to take a few weeks, and I figured…” He chuckled weakly before continuing, “Who else could you trust with your lab than yourself?”

You. She wanted to say it. I would trust you, Hiro.

“I love it already,” Karmi said instead, “Thank you…you should open your gift too. I didn’t think I could make a robot like you, but…this was the next best thing.”

Hiro ripped the present open and felt his mouth widen. He knew it was made with minky. He couldn’t help but think of Mochi as he caressed the fabric in his hands and sorely wanted to press it against his face. Two black button eyes stared back at him and Hiro was certain that it would sound just like Baymax if it could talk.

“Karmi…” He began, but words failed him.

“I like to sew in my freetime too,” Karmi blushed, “I didn’t know if this was your thing or not, but I know how much you love Baymax. Its like having a piece of your brother with you. You could have that in your room and it’d be like…having a piece of me with…”

The rest of her words were cut off as Hiro slammed into her and wound his arms tightly around her chest.

“Thank you, Karmi,” he whispered in his ear, “I love it.”

Karmi reached around with her arms and hugged him back fiercely. They stayed like this for a few minutes before pulling apart. Hiro reached out and grabbed her hand into his own and guided her through the crowd again without another word.

When they reached the entrance again, they saw Honey Lemon and Go Go waiting for them with knowing smiles on their faces. Wasabi was walking back to them, straightening out his mussed shirt and tie, hastily covering his neck with one large hand when he caught sight of the others. Fred came following afterwards with a blissful look on his face that came right off when he noticed Karmi and Hiro and said, “Hey! Where’s my sushi?!”

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just-dreaming-about · 5 years ago

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Big Hero 6

This time I come with a Big Hero 6 fanfic because I'm in the mood for this guys. Also I'm trying with (Y/N) because I couldn't find a good name for this one and you could imagine her/him whatever you want. I just love this movie and I hope you enjoy this!

Starting a new life it's always hard. You only had twelve years when your dad came to home with the news: "They give me the job!" You celebrated with your parents, both happy and excited, and you were happy because they were happy -you didn't had any idea what those words implied.

The first few weeks were very hard, unpacking and accommodating but luckily your parents made the job easier for you; music and laughs sounded throughout the house. Then, the day you were finishing painting the living room, the only place in the house that hadn't yet suffered your artistic attack with the brush, someone knocked on the door. You peeked down the hall without caring that there was paint all over your clothes, face and hair to see how your two parents opened the door to a stranger. That woman introduced herself as Cass Hamada and had brought her nephews to introduce herself to the new neighbors. It was weird. Where you lived, the neighbors ignored each other or yelled at each other because they annoyed each other.

One of this woman's nephews was your age, with messy black hair and a gesture of discomfort as if he preferred to be somewhere else. The other, the one who caught your young and easily impressionable heart, was tall, probably older than seventeen, wearing a baseball cap and preventing his little brother from running away from the situation. Still, no one was surprised that your parents were two men. One of them, the one who had gotten the job as journalist and for whom you had moved to that city turned to the hallway looking for you.

-We have a (girl/boy) your age, Hiro -said the one who hadn't turned.

-Wow, Hiro! An opportunity to make friends! -Mrs. Hamada was excited.

-It has to be around here... (Y/N)!-yelled the one turned.

You hid yourself and took a look in the mirror; it was when you realized how you looked. Your head was a chaos of negative thoughts and your hands tried to fix your hair. Your father shouted your name again and you took a deep breath, your two parents didn't mind going out with a paint mess, you shouldn't care either. Gathering all the confidence you were capable of, you went out into the hall and let them see you. Hiro looked annoyed, Tadashi just smiled and Mrs. Hamada looked like she was about to jump out of excitement.

-Aren't you the most adorable thing in town? -smiled Mrs. Hamada- Hiro, say something.

-I don't wanna to say anything -said Hiro crossing his arms.

-Then I'll say it -said Tadashi, bending down to be at your height- Hi, I'm Tadashi. This is my aunt Cass and he is the stupid, grumpy and immature of my brother -Tadashi was still smiling, although Hiro was complaining behind him, and extended his hand towards you- How are you?

In that moment you decided that Tadashi was the perfect boy.

From that day on, you became inseparable from the Hamada. They lived across the street and you always had fun being at their home. When you couldn't get out of your house because you were sick or punished, Tadashi made funny gestures out of his bedroom window -which looked at yours- while Hiro just looked at you wrongly or stuck his tongue out at you.

Trying to be friends with Tadashi was very easy, he was a person with whom you could talk about all subjects and who never laughed at your concerns. When you turned thirteen, a classmate invited you to the movies -your first date- and your response was to run to the Lucky Cat Cafe and tell Tadashi while you were dying of shame because Hiro was laughing at you.

Trying to be friends with Hiro was something else. Hiro was only interested in robotics and robo-combat and building robots. It was boring. The worst thing of all is that Tadashi started university and almost all his free time was spent at the university or working on his project so you had to spend time with Hiro. Now the routine was go to the Lucky Cat Cafe when finish class, grab some candy and interrupt Hiro in anything he was working on until Tadashi came home and played with you or your dads came to pick you up, whichever was earlier. Sometimes you stayed in his room or in the garage with Hiro while he worked and you did homework, both in silence until you had a doubt and Hiro tried that you find the answer by you alone because you wouldn't learn anything if he simply gave it to you.

The days went by while Hiro graduated from high school and rubbed it in your face, Tadashi continued to be an older brother to you, Aunt Cass prepared her delicious sweets, one of your dad entered as a professor at the University of San Fransokyo and the other entered as a journalist in one of the most important newspapers in the city. Things were going well.

The holidays passed quickly, Tadashi spent a lot of time in his laboratory, Hiro ignored you while working on his new robot and your young person of fourteen fantasized about Tadashi who was now your great crush.

-You know you will never be together, right? -said Hiro without looking at you.

-Excuse me? -you stopped sketching Tadashi's face on you notebook. You recently discovered that painting was one of your qualities and that you really enjoyed drawing everything you saw.

-Nothing, don't worry -he said with that tone that he always uses to make others believe that he doesn't care but you knew very well that he was dying to say something else.

-What do you know about this things?

-He is four years older than you, it is silly that you continue with that.

-It is none of your business if I have a crush for your brother.

-You are wrong about that. My favorite activity is seeing how you look at Tadashi, really expecting him to notice you like that. Do you know that that would be pedophilia? But what do I know about these things?

Finally, Hiro turned his chair to look at you with his sly smile plastered on his face until he saw your pained-angry expression and realized that you were about to cry. You ran out of there without saying a word, Hiro screaming your name running after you, you almost collided with Aunt Cass before leaving and crossing the street to go up to your house. You didn't open your bedroom door even to Tadashi when he came to see what had happened between you and Hiro. After three days without showing up at the Hamada's house, Hiro tried his luck with a drone that carried a message for you. At first, you were surprised to see that weird robot but when you looked behind it -towards Hiro's window- you saw the boy with the drone controls and with a nervous smile on his face. You shot him an angry look and closed the curtain, which didn't open all week.

One night after dinner, Aunt Cass appeared at your house, your dads were trying to calm her in the living room, she seemed about to break. Apparently, Hiro had disappeared and Tadashi had gone looking for him, Aunt Cass thought he would be here with you but he wasn't there -she didn't know that you and Hiro had fought. You sat with your parents in the living room, waiting for news from Tadashi while Aunt Cass was debuting the cookies your parents had brought, a feeling of anguish tightening your chest. Then Aunt Cass received a call from the police station and ran to find her nephews, your parents sent you to bed, it was very late and you had class tomorrow but you couldn't sleep: when Aunt Cass's car appeared on the street, you stuck to your bedroom window to see how the Hamadas were arguing with each other before entering the house. You sighed in relief to see that Hiro was safe and reacted late when the light in the brothers' room came on. Hiro had sat at his computer and looked out the window -out of habit- and saw you there with a worried face. He gave you the most sly smile and you show him your middle finger before closing the curtains again. Now you could sleep.

When missing your friends won over your pride, you showed up in the Hamada's garage to see Hiro and Tadashi very focused on something they were working on, Tadashi first became aware of your presence and gave you one of his kind smiles before leaving you with Hiro to fix whatever had happened between the two of you. Hiro was very bad asking for forgiveness and talking about feelings but you were honest with him; you told him that in your old city you didn't have many friends, so Tadashi behaving so well with you was a great change for you. You also told him that you weren't in love with Tadashi, not really you thought, you were in love with the idea of Tadashi: an attentive, smart and funny boy who cared about making you feel welcome in his house because he knew you didn't know anyone and you needed friends. You ended up accepting Hiro's apology and hugging him even though he had never liked this kind of display of affection.

But he also hugged you.

Now you were in context; Tadashi showed Hiro his university and introduced him to his friends and Hiro had marveled at everything and was now trying to carry out a huge project to let him study there as well. You also met Tadashi's friends since they started coming to the Hamada's house to cheer Hiro and help him advance his project, you became good friends with Honey Lemon and Fred, you even went to eat with all of them because they invited you. Your parents were concerned that your friends list was practically much older than you but they couldn't say that they were a bad influence on you, quite the opposite actually. While Hiro was developing his project, you kept him company simply by being there with him; you talked to him about how the classes had gone, who you had a fight with, which teacher you thought was against you because you didn't pass the last exam and you drew. You spent hours talking and talking while you drew. Sometimes Hiro would go for hours and hours without answering and you thought he wouldn't listen to you and you were silent but then he interrupted his work and asked you what happened next. You smiled broadly at him and kept telling him the story. Sometimes he would ask you for help with the most important task; give him gummy bears. He would leave his mouth open and you would put the sweets.

Until the day you fell asleep at the Hamada's garage. It wasn't planned, you were really having fun with Hiro throwing gummy bears to his mouth and sketching Hiro's hands while he worked. At some point in the night Hiro realized that you had fallen asleep in the couch over your sketches but didn't wake you up, he looked for a blanket and put it on you before continuing to work. The next morning the laughter of the others woke you both up, Tadashi had taken a picture of you both sleeping together in the couch and Fred was starting to sing a song about you two sitting under a tree. From that day on, the atmosphere between you and Hiro changed. You wouldn't know if it was your negative reaction, the panic on Hiro's face or the fact that Hiro shouted that you liked Tadashi, you only knew that that day you felt very bad, a pressure in your chest that you wouldn't know how to define. Tadashi went to talk to you and you both sat down on the stairs in front of your house to talk; he told you that he was honored to have been your first love but he also told you that he felt bad for being the first to break your heart. You, to Tadashi's relief, told him that you weren't in love with him. You confessed that you didn't understand your own feelings but it was true that you took references from him for the idea of your type of boy: cool, smart and who cares about your well-being. He said, mysteriously, that you would end up realizing it. What did you have to realize? You had no idea and Tadashi wasn't going to make it easy for you. The Hamadas were obsessed with you learning by yourself.

-I thought you promised to keep my secret -you said entering the Hamada's garage- I thought you were my friend.

Hiro was sitting at the computer but his head rested on his hands and his elbows on the table, he seemed to be overwhelmed by something. When he turned to see you, it looked like he hadn't slept in days.

-I'm your friend, (Y/N).

-Friends keep secrets.

He signed, seemed really bad.

-Is the idea of dating me so bad?-you didn't know where those words came from but once they were said there was no going back. The tension between you two seemed to increase.

Hiro mumbled some things you didn't understand before sighing again and running a hand through his hair.

-What did you said? -you asked a little more abrupt than you intended.

-Can we become friends again?-he repeated a little louder- I miss you...

Something inside you stirred restlessly and perhaps it was his pleading look or that you missed your friend but you ended up smiling defeated. This time it was Hiro who hugged you, whispering another apology.

The day before the convention where Hiro was supposed to prove himself to Callahan, you spent the evening trying to calm Hiro who was on his nerves pacing from one side of the garage to the other checking that everything was perfect. Since it was an impossible task, you let him be while you made new sketches in your new sketchbook. So you spent several hours until Tadashi appeared and stood next to you to see your sketches.

-You never cease to amaze me with every drawing, (Y/N).

-Miss Trainor has taught me to focus more on how light moves -you commented absentmindedly looking at Hiro to erase a line from your sketch and draw it again.

-What are you drawing? -Hiro asked coming closer to look too.

You panicked for a few seconds and closed the notebook. This had been going on for a couple of weeks; when you started drawing you showed all your sketches, then when you started drawing Tadashi it didn't bother you that Hiro saw you draw but lately when you drew Hiro you didn't let him see your sketches. A feeling of urgency and shame arose within you every time he asked to see your notebook.

-Why can Tadashi see and I can't?

At Hiro's insistence that he was beginning to get upset and your denials that you were starting to get angry, Tadashi ended the discussion.

-Because I am a human being who stays neat and rests well. Have you seen your face? Did you even take a shower yesterday? What impression will you make tomorrow if you fall asleep in your own talk?

Embarrassed, Hiro fled to shower, slamming the door behind him. You and Tadashi laughed at the situation and then he started to go over the same details that Hiro had been perfecting.

-You care about him a lot -you said, storing your things in your shoulder bag.

-He is my little brother, for me it is natural to worry -he shrugged his shoulders closing one of the containers of microbots.

-I'm jealous... You have each other. I am always alone at home when my dads aren't around.

-You have us, (Y/N) -Tadashi approached you and put a hand on your shoulder and gave you that smile that was reserved for Hiro- You are one more and you know it.

-Thanks, Tadashi.

You hugged Tadashi with all your might, partly because you didn't want to cry and that he called you corny, and partly because you wanted to show him how grateful you were for accepting you into his family. After you broke up, Tadashi asked you to come upstairs to check that Hiro had showered and to see if you could get him to get some sleep, he was going to finish the last checks.

In other circumstances you wouldn't have minded entering Hiro's room without calling and yelling at him to do what Tadashi had asked but now every step that brought you closer to the room made you blush more. For some reason it took a lot of courage to knock at the wall to advise him that you were there, to your relief, a freshly showered and already dressed Hiro peeked down to see who was there.

-Since when do you knock? -Hiro asked, yawning and stepping aside to let you in.

-Since when do you not sleep?-you changed the subject bluntly but Hiro didn't seem to care.

-As the date gets closer I find it harder to sleep -he confessed with a shrug- I review things in my head all the time, I want it to be perfect.

-You will be better off if you rest properly - you scolded crossing your arms.

-I can't, okay? I can't sleep. Does it matter? My technology will speak for me.

-Of course it matters! Ugh. Sometimes you're impossible.

Full of rage and without saying another word you took Hiro's hand and dragged him to bed, laying you down with him. Hiro was a chaos of stammering, complaining and blushing but you imposed yourself and forced him to lean his back against the bed, you ordered him to close his eyes and you stayed with him looking at the ceiling. After a few minutes Hiro opened his eyes and turned his head towards you to tell you that he was still not sleeping. You completely turned around and looked at him angrily.

-I will stay with you until you fall asleep.

And he didn't try anything to make you leave.

The next morning both Hiro and you had to put up with comments from Tadashi, Fred, Gogo... Even Aunt Cass made a comment!

One of your dads as a professor at San Fransokyo University was helping to organize the event and the other had to be there to do an article about the event for the newspaper so Aunt Cass offered to take you with Hiro and Tadashi. Even you could see perfectly well that Hiro was pretending not to be nervous when he was actually about to have an attack so you spent most of the way holding his hand to cheer him up. You gasped when the convention doors opened and it had to be Hiro who pulled your hand in order for you to move forward. Before everyone scattered around the room to hand out the containers that guarded the microbots that Hiro had built, Honey Lemon took a selfie of the group where, to your surprise, it was Hiro who pushed you into a surprise hug so in the photo you came out looking at Hiro, smiling and if you looked closely you were a little flushed. After that you were going to go with Aunt Cass to wait for Hiro's exposition turn, but Hiro didn't let go of your hand.

-All right, bro. This is it -said Tadashi trying to bump fists with Hiro but he was distracted- Come on! Don't leave me hanging -Tadashi looked at me and then to Hiro to realize that Hiro was worried- What's going on?

-I really want to go here -he said frankly at the time he squeezed your hand.

-Hey, you got this -reassured Tadashi putting a hand on his shoulder.

Hiro looked at you one last time before releasing your hand and walk to the scenario. Tadashi and you shared a worried look but he put his arm around you and took you with him searching for aunt Cass, your two dads and the gang: they actually found the best place where they could see Hiro but when people started noticing Hiro exposition and they started to approach to see better you were too small to see through them so Wasabi sit you on his shoulders. Hiro started shyly and you thought he was so cute when he started talking with new confidence. That was the Hiro you knew and you were so proud of him. The exposition finished and you were left behind with aunt Cass and your parents and when you did it to where Hiro and the gang was, a men was already leaving them and you freaked out that this men was Alistar Krei from Krei Tech and Callahan was giving Hiro his acceptance card. Hiro seemed so freaked out and you take advantage to run and surprise him with a big hug.

-That was amazing! Why did you so much drama last night?

-What happened last night? -asked Fred with that tone that made you and Hiro blush and broke the hug.

-Nothing you should care -you crossed your arms and frowned to him.

Your parents called you and you thanks them for that, perfect timing. They told you that they should stay for the party because of their job so you had to go with the Hamadas, that didn't bother you and you found the gang going out the building. Actually, Hiro and Tadashi were leaving behind after a big hug from aunt Cass.

-Eh, where's going everyone?

-They're over there, we'll meet them at the cafe -answered Tadashi with his big smile.

-Aren't you coming?

-I want to talk with Hiro, would you save us a place with you in the cafeteria?

You smiled to Tadashi, nodding, and them looked at Hiro to hug him again.

-That was really amazing, Hiro.

He hugged you too and broke when Tadashi took a photo of you hugging.

-I'll send this to everyone!

You simply blushed again but Hiro started to chase his brother yelling at him. Laughing, you tried reach the gang at the parking but then you heard people yelling and when you noticed it the exposition building was on fire. You were so worried about your dads that you started running without care if aunt Cass shouted you don't. Your two dads were good, they could go out the building fine but then, the building exploded and when you looked you could see Hiro at the ground yelling Tadashi's name. Either your two dads could stopped you when you run to him, you stumbled and skidded on the floor in your way but you made it to him and took his face so he could look at you.

-Hiro, where's Tadashi? What happened!? Are you listening me!? What happened!?

But he didn't tell you anything. In fact he didn't tell you anymore since that day. He closed up to you, to everyone, and didn't care if there were people worried about him. You didn't know what you could do or say, your dads insisted that you only had to be there for him but you felt like you weren't welcomed in his room anymore. You tried a lot but you couldn't reach him and the person who you go when you need advice wasn't there anymore. It was frustrating and you were almost depressed as Hiro but you thought you had to be strong for Hiro and Tadashi so you still go to school and then to the Lucky Cat Cafe, you went to Hiro's room and helped him with cleaning and trying to get him out but he didn't want you there. You still trying showing him a new painting you did in Art Class but he didn't care. You thought that painting was horrible anyway, since Tadashi's death you didn't draw anything good. When it was time for you to go to your house, Aunt Cass hug you and said that you were doing good, but you didn't believe it. Took you a few weeks to stop trying. You didn't know what to do either the gang didn't have any idea.

And then, one night, your phone ring with a message from Baymax. You didn't remember what a Baymax was but the message said that Hiro needed you so you didn't hesitate, you dressed up and were careful to not wake up your dads, crossed the street and stopped when a car park next to you. Wasabi, Gogo, Honey Lemon and Fred were there, and all of you saw how Hiro with a big armored thing escaped to the streets. Gogo take you on the car and Wasabi drives following Hiro to the bay where they were spying something. He freaked out when all of you go out from the car.

-Dude, what are you doing out here? -asked Wasabi saying what everyone was thinking.

-Nothing! Just out for a walk. Helps my pubescent mood swings.

-Pubescent? -you asked as he was regretting said that.

-You have to go! -Hiro yelled at all of you stopping the questions about Baymax.

-No, don't push us away again, Hiro. We're here for you -said Honey Lemon- That's why Baymax contacted us.

-Those who suffer a lost, require support from friends and loved ones -said Baymax- Who would like to share their feelings first?

You looked at Hiro crossing your arms, after all those days without say nothing he were here playing around? You were angry and Hiro could feel that. And just when Fred was starting sharing his feelings a kabuki masked man with Hiro's microbots tried to throw you a container but Baymax stopped it. All of you run to the car but Gogo had to took Hiro because he was this stupid that he was staying there. Once in the car, Baymax broke the car ceiling with his butt so Wasabi drives you out of there.

-Hiro, explanation. Now! -said Gogo.

-He stole my microbots! He started the fire! I don't know who he is!

-And you were trying to go for him you alone!? -you freaked out taking him from the arm- You're crazy!

The whole chase took all over the town, Fred freaking out about this Kabuki man was a super villain, Honey Lemon stay at the positive part and Gogo lost all his patience and sit in Wasabi's legs to drive. Baymax saved Hiro's life and you were about to suffer a heart attack almost at every turn. Honey Lemon and you hugged while the car fell at the water and Baymax take all of you out of there.

-I told you we'd make it! -said Honey Lemon.

-Your injuries required my attention. And your body temperatures are low -said Baymax.

-We should get out of here -pointed Hiro.

-I know a place -Fred was so strange again.

While Fred took you to his house, Hiro looked at you with a feeling you couldn't say what was but you frowned at him and hugged Honey Lemon looking some warm. Fred house was ridiculously big and any of you could believe it was Fred's house. The conversation with the gang ended up suspecting about Alistair Krei was that Kabuki man, Hiro was so strange when he said he would upgrade all of you and you all agreed that someone had to catch the one who started the fire where Tadashi died. All of them worked on what skills they have and you heard them on the design on theirs suits, Hiro was the last word on the design because only him knows what he can do on his lab and you feel like old times. It was refreshing and inspiring and the fact that Hiro and you could talk again was the best part. And when everybody had their suit you looked at Hiro waiting for yours.

-What are you looking at? -he laughed a little nervous, you even said he blushed.

-Where's my suit? -you were so excited about it, you can't wait.

-Oh, your suit -Hiro didn't look at you, he was evading your eyes- I didn't do it.

-What? We were working on it! You said... -and then you realized it- You don't want me here.

-What? (Y/N) That's not true.

-You're pushing me away, again -he tried to denied it but you cut hum- You did this all the time! Why I still believing in you?

-(Y/N), I don't... You don't understand.

-I understand everything. You just were my friend because of Tadashi -you can feel tears forming on your eyes and your voice broking- You don't want to be my friend anymore?

-I don't said any of that! You're getting me out of context. Let me explain...

He tried to approach to you but you pushed him away from you and hugged yourself.

-No! I don't want more lies! I tried everything, Hiro, to cheer you up but you ignored me and when I thought we started being friends again... I don't want you to hurt me anymore.

You were crying now and Hiro looked terrible because of that, he didn't know what to do to calm you and was looking around to think something.

-I... I didn't want to hurt you.

-I wish Tadashi were here, not you.

You know from the moment those words escapes from your mouth that you will regret that forever. Hiro looked hurt first and then angry.

-Get out of here! I don't want you in my house! Never!

-I hate you! -you shouted leaving the garage but you could heard Hiro's last words.

-I wish aunt Cass never took us to your house! I wish I never met you!

That words hunted you all day and night. Your parents didn't know why you spend those days crying in your room, you were hurt and heartbroken and you knew perfectly that you have the fault. Also you knew that Hiro and the gang were busy with that Kabuki man so you thought you shouldn't bother them. You were alone, again, and you thought you deserved it. You received a message from Honey Lemon telling you to call her and when you did it, you were surprised.

-And Hiro just left you there?

-Don't worry, Fred called Heathcliff to pick us but we're worried about Hiro. Could you check if he's at his house?

-I don't know if I should... He don't want me there anymore.

-Look, I don't know what happened between Hiro and you -that was Gogo voice- But I know something about you. You two are the best friends I've ever seen, ok? And no matter what problem you have between you, you are always there for each other. Ok? So go there and check him because he wasn't himself and he needs you even if he didn't know it yet. Got it?

-But...

-Stop whining. Woman up -she said before hanging up.

At that moment you heard a noise at the street and saw how Hiro and Baymax landed and went to the garage. You took all the courage you have and send a message to Honey Lemon "I got him". When you reach the garage you were hesitant until you heard them.

-Yes! No! I don't know! Open you access! -that was Hiro's voice.

-Is this what Tadashi wanted? -and that one was Baymax's.

-It doesn't matter!

-Tadashi programed me to aid and...

-Tadashi's gone!

You were crying when you stopped hiding and called him.

-Hiro?

-(Y/N)? -he was crying too.

Neither of you moved, just stare at each other in silence. Then Baymax said:

-Tadashi's here.

-No -mumbles Hiro looking at the floor- He's not here.

Then Baymax started to reproduce a video about Tadashi building Baymax and his failed tries. He was so optimistic, and excited and tired but he never give up. You were crying again at the sight of your friend and approached to Hiro who was looking at him too.

-Oh, man. Wait till my brother and (Y/N) see you. You're gonna help so many people, buddy. So many. That's all for now. I am satisfied with my care.

The video stopped with the image of Tadashi smiling and Hiro took his hand to his brother face.

-I miss him -he said.

-Me too -you whispered looking at him- He was like a brother to me.

-He was my best friend -he didn't looked at you.

-I know... And you're mine -you surprised him and now he looked at you when the image switch off- And I hurt you and I know I said things and I am so sorry for that. I was so frustrated and upset and only thinking on me but you were suffering too and... -you stopped yourself because you were crying so much that you can't speak.

-I'm sorry too. I should talk to you before but I was scared that you would be angry with me and... -he signed- I don't regret aunt Cass forced me to go to your house to meet you, (Y/N). Actually I'm grateful.

-I... Do-don't hate you -you said between cries.

Hiro smiled at you and hugged you and you cried in his arms.

-Those who suffer a lost, require support from friends and loved ones -said Baymax.

You both laughed at this and break the hug to look at each other.

-I didn't build you a suit because I don't want you get hurt. I was trying to protect you because I can't lose you too, (Y/N).

-I understand now -you nodded smiling but then punch his arm- Next time, talk to me! Got it? I'm here for you, you stupid genius butt!

-I don't get it -he rubbed his arm- I'm a genius or a stupid?

-You're impossible!

-But you love me!

He started tickling you and you hopped he didn't notice your blush or at least think it was for the laughs.

-I knew you'll make it -Gogo voice stopped both of you.

-The all team again! -celebrate Fred.

They show you a video that they get on that spooky island and then explain to you what you discovered there. Callahan was that Kabuki man and he was taking revenge of his daughter.

The gang prepared for his next move and you helped them, givin to Gogo her bubblegum, her bag to Honey Lemon and when Hiro took his helmet you took it from his hands.

-You're gonna be careful, right?

-I promise -he smiled to you and you believe him so you put him his helmet.

-I'm trusting you, Hiro. Just come with me again.

-I will always come to you, (Y/N).

He seemed like he would say something more but Wasabi called him so he smiled at you one more time and went with the guys. You were left on the garage and use Hiro's computer to use the satellites that Hiro had hacked when he was working on Baymax scan to see what was happening. You were so proud of then when they make it to trick the bad guy and left him without the microbots. But when you saw Hiro and Baymax going on that weird portal thing you freaked out and couldn't take it anymore more. You run to your house, it was your dad free day but you needed him.

-Dad! I know it's your free day but I know where you can get a big new.

-What are you talking about?

-I'm talking about the biggest new your newspaper have never seen. Believe me.

And he believed you so he take you on his car to Krei Tech just in time to see Hiro getting out that portal thing. Your dad started to interrogate to Krei and Callahan and the police and ambulance were starting to park so you take advantage of that to run to Hiro without anyone noticed it.

-Hiro! -you jump to hug him- You made it! You came back.

-I... I promised you, didn't I?

He hugged you with a arm but he sounded sad so you looked around and that's when you noticed it.

-Where's Baymax?

He just looked at the ground without answering.

-We need to take you out of here.

The gang hides away and Heathcliff took them away while you came back with your father.

After a few days things went to normal or at least as normal as they can be. Hiro went to university with the guys and you were so proud of him while you still were going to high school but now you pass all the afternoon and evening with them at the university, Fred said you were the new pet of pet's university and you didn't complain him because it was funny. And then one day Hiro came running to the gang with a chip in his hand: it was Baymax's chip, the original! And he was so excited about it so you help him with whatever he needed, even if was only giving him gummy bears.

-I think I get it! -shouted Hiro waking you up from his desk.

You fall asleep on your sketchbook again. Since Tadashi's death you didn't draw anything good but now Hiro helped you drawing again. He worked with you and now you didn't care that his head suddenly appeared on your shoulder when you were drawing, in fact you blush and feel this weird thing because he was so close to you.

-What? -you rubbed your eyes approaching to Hiro.

-Let's try! Ow?

With that, the robot go out his container and said:

-I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. Hello, Hiro.

He was so freaked out that he jumped and screamed. You both were celebrating til Hiro took you by your arms and kissed you. On the lips. Your lips just touched but that was enough. He pushed himself away, blushing hard and mumbling excuses while you were so surprised that you didn't do or said anything.

-(Y/N)? I'm sorry? We can forget about this if you want.

That's when you wake up and blinked looking him like he was an alien.

-You're crazy? -you were blushing while you speak- There's no way I'm forgetting my first kiss. Furthermore when I like it.

-You did? -he smiled his eyes full of hope and excitement again.

-I like you.

-You do?

-Stop asking, you stupid brain of circuits...

You have more things to say to Hiro but he interrupted you with another kiss and then smiled you with that sly smile that you really loved.

-I knew you loved me.

-No, you didn't, you little bastard.

-You're spending so much time with Gogo -he laughed while you throw your tongue to him just for him to catch your mouth with a deepened kiss- I love you.

You blushed abruptly because of the kiss and his words.

-I... I said I like you -you mumbled.

-I know but I love you since last year -he simply said with his sweet smile- That's why I was so mean with you. I was jealous of Tadashi.

-You're a weirdo, you know?

-But you love me, just you don't realize it.

You were feeling that thing again, the blush doesn't go away from your face and you suspected Hiro was delighted with that fact.

-I'm going to kill you.

-Death is a thing I can't take care of-said Baymax pointing with his hand.

-It's just an expression, buddy-answered Hiro, smiling.

-Don't be so sure about that.

#bh6 wasabi #bh6 fred #big hero 6 #big hero six #tadashi hamada #bh6 tadashi #hiro hamada #hiro hamada x reader #hiro x reader #tadashi hamada x reader #tadashi x reader #disney #fanfic #Y/N #hiro x y/n #hiro hamada x y/n #tadashi x y/n #tadashi hamada x y/n #hiro and tadashi

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ficsinhistory · 4 years ago

Text

A Lily for You - A BH6 Theory

Hello folks! So, with the announcement that the third season is coming out this summer, probably in August, I thought it could bring some theory and opinions about a character that might appear and have a relevant role in the third season.

It all starts in the episode that destroyed my heart, City of Monsters; and with the medical character that appeared in part 1:

Lily. (yes, she has a name.)

Lily is the person who helped Tadashi in programming the Baymax medical matrix and is responsible for all medical knowledge of the robot. If Tadashi is the father of the health assistant, Lily would be the mother.

Here the video that shows the exact part that she appears. ( begin in 0:17)

youtube

At first I thought her appearance was something unique and just a cute scene that would make us emotional, after all it was not even mentioned as she was called.

Then she gets a name in the credits.

And then I was intrigued.

If it were a single appearance, we wouldn’t get a name on the credits, just doctor or something, but she have a name! Which made me think that we would see her again. But on second thought, Lily being who she is, she wouldn't show up just once.

"What?" You ask. Let's look at the facts and what they imply:

Lily is technically the co-creator of Baymax. Tadashi did the whole project, and deserves all the glory for persistence and sleepless nights, and being able to put everything in order in a fluffy and perfect machine. But man, Lily has a fair share in creating Baymax! All his medical knowledge was given by her and that was vital in the schedule. Tadashi recognized that. If we were to put it on labels, Lily gave Baymax's heart while Tadashi gave conscience and body. And what gives it more weight, in my opinion? Maybe Lily is the only one who has information about Baymax that even Hiro doesn't have, maybe some of the raw material or something. And thinking more about it, Lily is theoretically the only person who participated in the creation of Baymax who is still alive, probally. It is not known whether she stayed long during the original project and how big her part was in programming and knowledge. But, Tadashi took 84 test until Baymax is perfect for use. And you don't build a matrix from scratch in a few days, which takes me ...

Lily and Tadashi. They were friends. From what the video shows, Lily was the only source of medical information and that certainly must have required hours of research and many times she would have to go to SFIT to check if the information was being performed correctly and all that jazz. And that alone raises several questions: was she a student at SFIT? Is there a medical course at SFIT? If the answer was no, how the hell did she know Tadashi? What led him to decide that she would be a good help in building Baymax? How did she get into SFIT if she is not a student, special pass or something? Did Callaghan - and now Grandville - know her? Do the other gang members know her, since she would go to the lab often? Hiro obviously didn't know her due to his reaction to thinking that his brother had done everything himself, but if the others did, why didn't they say anything? Did Aunt Cass know her? What catches me every time is that they didn't seem to be just friends, but close friends. Unlike what Karmi and Hiro did, Baymax took more than one night to be mafe, which implies that they worked a lot together. From what she is wearing, Lily appears to be someone in her years of residence assuming that she is around Tadashi's age, and, consequently, in the final year of her course. And such a person is very busy; but there she was helping and leaving Baymax more than a giant, talking balloon. And if you see the video above, despite the little interaction the body language of both shows comfort and nonchalance. We have nicknames, we have praise, we have literal closeness and relaxation. These two got along well, very well, and I wanna know more. (And it's probably just me, but doesn't their interaction kinda seem a little... flirtatious? Just saying,..)

Lily as a character and its impact on the plot. If I'm right and if Lily really does become a relevant character, it will bring several points: First, it will have an emotional impact for Hiro: Lily would be Tadashi's first friend who is not his friend. A strange person who apparently has a personal imprint on his brother's greatest work. How would he see her? What would make Hiro see her? Maybe Baymax was too damaged? Maybe an accident? Maybe she'll become a campus doctor since - assuming she's Tadashi's age - she would have graduated and would work there?(!) Second, the impact on Baymax: Baymax had little time with Tadashi, but seems to value him very much as his friend's brother and perhaps even as a creator. But, what would he feel about Lily? Baymax knows that it had a bearing on her upbringing and nothing suggests that they have seen each other again. What would happen if they saw each other? What if he and Hiro have different opinions about her? Would he see you as a co-creator? Third, emotional impact on the team. Everyone in the gang was friends with Tadashi. And if it is true that they did not know Lily, what would it be like to live with her? How would they see it? Of course, not all friends of a common person know each other, but the interaction would be interesting and I can dream. However, all I have said here are guesses in just a few seconds. which brings us to the last topic.

Who Lily can be. Lily doesn't appear much and her first appearance is also the only one. However, as far as we can judge from the video, she seems to be someone kind, helpful and with a great sense of humor. In addition, she seems to be concerned, trustworthy and very intelligent, as Tadashi would certainly not trust anyone to be her source of health knowledge for something so important. As I said, she may appear because she is a new doctor on campus or some other reason. It would be interesting to see her react to Tadashi's death, see more of his younger brother and more about the robot she helped create. Ther than that, my only conclusions about her future and role are, as I always see when I search for a new character, the search for the name. Lily is a name derived from a flower, which reflects the apparent field of action: Health and Biology (in reality she has this and more in common with a certain biotechnology prodigy, but that is the subject for another post). Lilies have both happy and sad meanings. Here's what I found from some sources: Lily can mean purity, passion, motherhood and love. All of them would make sense with the character, Lily seems to be someone who has not made any big mistakes in life and who has always tried to show that she wants to help others (although this may be questionable), besides possibly also being passionate about her own profession and loving everyone enough to wanting to be a doctor. Maternity is ironically correct, since in theory she is the mother of Baymax, and can, like Honey Lemon, have a maternal personality. Finally, the most important meaning is that lilies are a flower of grief. They symbolize the loss, the transience of life and the memory of the innocents who died. Which is both poetic and appropriate. Lily was a friend of Tadashi. It is the only part of the original design, of the original Baymax, that remains. Tadashi died, the other Baymax is on the portal indefinitely. She is the memory. Not to mention that this can be part of her arc, how mourning her friend affects her or how she can help others with it. Or both. Anyway, this analysis has gone on too long and I'm probably like this:

In the end, Lily may not even show up, all I said was that she actually got a name in the credits and her narrative potential. Now I want to know about you, what do you think about Lily and if she has a chance to appear?

#big hero 6 #big hero 6 the series #bh6 #bh6 the series #tadashi hamada #hiro hamada #baymax

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rocksandrobots · 4 years ago

Text

Of Rocks and Robots Ch. 30 - Coffee and Chemicals

"Ummm...what's Honey Lemon doing?" Fred asked as the gang made their way across the quad.

Their friend wasn't with them but stood off to the side looking up at a large shady elm through half lidded eyes.

"Hello, professor oak, I finished my…"she gave a prodigious yawn before sleepily continuing on "...report… on… color… theory..." Another yawn escaped her lips.

"Is she talking to a tree?" Wasabi asked with concern.

"She's been hit hard by midterms," Gogo explained, "three exams in one day, plus two more tomorrow, four final projects due Friday, and she just got a large order of her cosmetics that's due to ship this weekend. She's been pulling all nighters for the past three days."

As if to confirm this explanation the group heard a loud snore come from Honey Lemon's way. She wobbled as her head drooped down on her chest and Gogo skated over to her in a rush and caught the tall girl in her arms before she fell unconscious.

"Do you need help?" Varian asked as the rest of the gang followed after.

"Nope" Gogo grunted as she dragged Honey Lemon's limp body towards the doors. Wasabi ignored her and picked up Honey Lemon's legs so that they could better carry her inside.

"Man and I thought I had it bad." Kamri committed as they walked into the student lounge.

"Yeah, Honey Lemon is a double major at two schools." Hiro explained. "By the looks of it she must be stretching herself too thin."

Fred ran to snag a few chairs and put them together to form a makeshift bed as Gogo and Wasabi gently laid Honey Lemon down.

"Got... isotope project due…Friday.." Honey Lemon hummed in her sleep before letting out another snore.

"I'll go get her a coffee." Varian offered helpfully as he walked to the barista that was housed inside the lounge.

"Honey Lemon?" Gogo gently asked as she gave her friend a firm shake, but no response came other than more snoring.

"Face it, she's dead to the world." Wasabi commented.

"Here try this." Varian walked over carrying an espresso and handed it to Gogo.

Karmi rolled her eyes, "You think caffeine is the answer for everything. Remember the red bull incident?"

"Hey, that was a scientific experiment!" Varian indignantly defended himself, "Theoretically the Nyquil should have canceled out the energy drink…"

"And what's your excuse for eating the coffee beans straight out of the bag?" Hiro asked.

"I don't eat them straight out of the bag," Varian dismissed, "I roast them first."

"Ooo, have you tried the ones covered in chocolate?" Fred added, "Those are good."

"Both of you have a caffeine addiction. That much coffee isn't good for you." Wasabi warned.

"Well either way looks like the smell of the coffee is working" Gogo interrupted as she nudged Honey Lemon awake.

Honey Lemon hummed as she sat up and followed the coffee cup with her nose. She slowly blinked her eyes open before snagging the cup out of Gogo's hands, downing it in one gulp, and then yawning as she fell back asleep.

Hiro however caught her head before she could finish laying back down, "Sorry, Honey Lemon but we gotta keep you awake."

"Yeah you got an exam in fifteen minutes." Gogo reminded her.

"Nooooo" Honey Lemon moaned and tried to turn around on her side to curl up and sleep.

Wasabi stopped her this time and helped to lift her back up to her feet.

"You better go get another coffee." Karmi whispered to Varian.

"Told you." He whispered back before making his way back to the counter.

-----------------------------

Keeping Honey Lemon awake throughout the day was no easy task. She kept dozing off during her exams, labs, and even lunch. The rest of the gang had to stay with her during the school day to nudge her awake or coax her with coffee.

Once school was done however, she refused to go home and go to bed; citing she had too much to do. And so that's how she wound up currently inside Hamada home studying for her chemistry midterm.

She had asked Varian to help her since he was the only one who held the same interest in the subject. He was only too happy to oblige, but it was proving to be a difficult task. Honey Lemon couldn't focus and would stare dreamily off into the distance instead of answering the questions he would give her.

"Silver has two naturally occurring isotopes, 107Ag is at 106.9 amu and 109 Ag at 108.9 amu, therefore what is the average atomic mass of silver?" Varian read off the practice test.

"Hmmm?" Honey Lemon hummed questioningly.

They were sitting on the couch in the living room, textbooks splayed out upon the coffee table in front of them. Honey Lemon's elbows rested on her knees and her chin was cradled in her fists. She looked at him as if only just noticing he was even there.

"Come on, this an easy one." Varian coaxed, "What's the atomic mass of silver?"

"Oh!"She exclaimed as what was being asked of her finally dawned in her brian. She then yawned and said, "107.9 amu."

"Correct; now which of the following is not a homogeneous mixture?" He continued with the quiz. "Air? Copper? Brass? Or-"

"Does everyone have blue hair where you come from?" Honey Lemon innocently interrupted.

Varian suddenly froze as if he'd been hit by a truck. He slowly turned to look at the other teen and saw her eyeing him curiously through heavy eyelids. He gulped and tried to brush off the question.

"Ah..well…not really.."

"Cause your stripe never fades like say a dye job would." She explained; oblivious to his discomfort in her sleepy haze.

"Umm well… I've always just had it...I think it's from an alchemy accident...or something…"

"No... that can be it..." She shook her head in confusion, "If you had just spilled a chemical on it, it would have eventually just grown out." Now with her curiosity piked, she began to perk up and unthinkingly reached her hand up to run it through his hair. "You mean it just grows out blue, and only one strand? That's got to be like a genetic thing..."

Varian tried to pull away; his cheeks burning red. How he hated being reminded that didn't fit in, not even in his own world. Honey Lemon was still oblivious however.

"Do you have anyone in your family with blue hair as well?" She pressed, trying to figure out this new mystery.

"I don't know!" He snapped.

Everything went quiet. Honey Lemon lifted her hand away and looked at him with wide eyes. She had seen his temper before, but this was the first he had ever gotten mad at her. She didn't know what to do, and neither did Varian.

He hadn't meant to yell at her, and frightening her, of all people, was the last thing in the world that he'd ever want to do. But talk of his past always sent him into a panic and not knowing the answer to something threw him off balance. The fact that the mystery was himself only heightened his concern, which is why he prefered to ignore it.

"I'm sorry." They both stammered out at the same time. They stopped in surprise at the unique timing of their apologies and then softly giggled and blushed over how silly they were being; the tension ebbing away as quickly as it had arrived.

"I..I shouldn't have pried." Honey Lemon said she tugged a strand of her own hair.

"No..I shouldn't have yelled." Varian countered. "It's just…well...no one likes being different, ya know?"

"Oh, but everybody's different," Honey Lemon encouraged cheerfully. Varian tried his best not to roll his eyes at such a lame platitude.

"No, I mean it." She laughed. She then tried to give him a smile but it was soon broken by another yawn. She stretched and then leaned over to rest her head upon his shoulder.

"I like your hair. It's part of what makes you special." She then hugged his arm and nuzzled her head as she curled up on the couch next to him, putting her feet up on the cushions and using him as a pillow.

Varian was stunned. She liked his hair? She didn't think him odd or a freak? Varian tried to remember a time when anybody had ever complimented his abnormally. Most would politely ignore it or brush it off, a few would tease, and some would even call it a bad omen. The more superstitious villagers said it was a hex, a clear sign that he was unnatural, and combined with his more unsuccessful alchemy experiments, helped to spread the rumor that he was a dangerous wizard. It was part of the reason why he hated being associated with magic.

Somewhere in his distant memory he could recall hushed conversations late at night between his parents concerning him. He couldn't remember precisely what had been said, but he knew they were worried about him and his hairstripe.

Heck even Aunt Cass had been weirded out when he told her he didn't need her to buy any hair dye for him. He probably should have played along then when she asked if needed some, but he hadn't been thinking at the time. She hasn't said anything since, but he knew she hadn't been able to process the idea that his hair just naturally grew out blue.

His musings were interrupted when he heard a loud snore right next to his ear.

He looked down to see Honey Lemon fast asleep and snoring away soundly like she normally did when sleeping. He didn't mind though. He supposed it was part of what made her special too. Also she really needed the rest.

He gently pulled his arm out of her grip and then wrapped it around her waist so she wouldn't fall forward as he reached his other hand over to the coffee table to snag his physics text book. He figured he would study for his own upcoming exam while she slept. Careful not to wake her, he propped his foot up on the table and reasted the book on his knee; using one hand to open it and turn the pages as he cradled the sleeping girl next to him with the other.

-----------------------------

"Honey Lemon? Are you ready to go?" Gogo asked as she and Hiro climbed upstairs. They had agreed to take on patrol duty tonight so everyone else could study. They had finished up early and now Gogo had come to pick up Honey Lemon so that they could head home.

They found her and Varian both asleep on the couch. He had a textbook covering his eyes as he used the seat's arm as a pillow on one end and stretched his feet out to the other, with one foot dangling off the edge. Honey Lemon was sprawled out on top of him while she rested her head upon his stomach. "The answer is copper…" she mumbled in her sleep and then hugged his waist tighter like she would a pillow.

"Cute." Gogo said deadpan and then she raised an eyebrow at Hiro. "Should we wake them?"

Hiro gave her a wicked grin and signaled for her to stay quiet while he ran upstairs to his room. He re-emerged moments later with a megaphone in his hand.

"Where did you get that?" She asked.

"Did Tadashi ever tell you about the time he was a cheerleader in high school?" He whispered back. "He said it was to meet girls." He explained to a now clearly confused Gogo.

Hiro didn't give her time to process this new information however as he placed the microphone to his lips and bent down till he was right at Varian's ear.

"Good Morning!" He yelled. "Wakey, wakey! Time to rise and shine!"

Varian bolted upright, knocking the textbook to the floor and doing more to wake up Honey Lemon than any megaphone could.

"Hun?" She blinked sleepily while Gogo tried to suppress her snickering.

Varian glared at her and Hiro, but the face he made only filled them both with more laughter.

"What was that for!?" He angrily yelled.

"You.. you needed to wake up." Hiro explained through his laughter,"also next time don't leave your smelly socks and shoes in the garage. I gotta work in there, ya know."

If looks could have killed, Hiro would have been dead from Varian's gaze alone. He would have lunged at the other boy had Honey Lemon not held him back.

"Look, that was funny but you shouldn't have done it." Gogo interceded.

Hiro mumbled an apology and, he and Varian gave a half hearted handshake to appease the two girls.

"Good. Anyways Honey Lemon and I need to get home, so see ya tomorrow." She waved goodbye and headed down stairs.

Honey Lemon gathered her things up and followed after her, yawning goodbye as she went.

Once they were both gone and out of earshot Varian spoke up,

"Thanks for running the moment." He said irritably.

"What moment? You two were out cold." Hiro snarked back and then he paused as the meaning behind Varian's words came to light, "Waait...You and Honey Lemon?" He couldn't stifle his laughter. "You have a crush on Honey Lemon."

"What of it?" Came Varian's offended reply.

"Dude, she's so out of your league."

"She is not!"

"She's two years older than you and one of the more popular girls at both ours and SFAI's campus. What makes you think you even have a chance?"

"So? That's the same age difference between you and Karmi."

"Wh..what does Karmi have to do with this?" Hiro asked. He was momentarily tripped up by the change in subject.

"Oh come on." Varian rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows you like Karmi."

"I do not!"

"Do to."

"Do not...look for your information I happen to like Megan, okay?"

"Ahhh…" Varian raised an eyebrow and gave a sly smile, "So does either girl know you're cheating on them?" He teased.

"I'm not- we're not...I'm not dating either one of them... yet!" Hiro flustered. "Look it's none of your business!"

"Then stay out of mine." Varian retorted.

"Fine!"

"Fine."

"F-fine."

"Fi-- " Varian stopped, "How long are we going to keep saying 'fine' at one another?"

Hiro shrugged. "Look, I'm sorry for the megaphone gag. That was kind of mean and I promise I won't interrupt your 'it's totally not a date and your dreaming if you think it is' study sessions with Honey Lemon again. Deal?"

"Okay, and I'll make sure to throw my socks in the laundry next time and, I promise not to tell either Karmi or Megan that you like them. I wanna be around when it blows up in your face though." He gave another smug smile and Hiro rolled his eyes.

"Whatever." He dismissed and headed upstairs to bed while Varian picked up his textbooks.

-----------------------------

Varian passed by the chemistry lab on his way to lunch. He paused when he heard a loud snore coming from the room. He stopped and saw Honey Lemon alone in the room with her head on the desk.

"Honey Lemon? You..okay?" He asked as he walked over to her and gave her a light tap on her shoulder.

She must not have been asleep long for she jumped at the touch and jolted awake.

"Oh? Oh, Varian! Hiiiiaahh!" Her hello turned into a yawn and Varian gave her a worried frown.

"Did you not get any sleep last night?" He asked.

"Oh sure…. Sure I did. Right after I finished my still life drawing for tomorrow." She mumbled quietly

Varian raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "Which was how many hours exactly?"

"The drawing or sleep?" She asked.

"You know what I meant."

Honey Lemon rolled her eyes and tried to dismiss his concerns. "I'm fiiine. It's only one more day till Friday and then I can take a long nap on Saturday. Besides I got to finnish making up these mini chimballs for my project."

She gave another yawn and groped around absentmindedly for the vial of chemical solution that she needed. " I just need to add this potassium iodine and…"

She picked up one of the vials and made to pour into the solution that she had bubbling in a beaker over a Bunsen burner, not really paying attention to nor looking at what she had actually grabbed.

Varian's eyes went wide as he noticed the label on the vial she was holding.

"Honey Lemon wait! No! That's octane!" He shouted, but he was too late.

The contents of the beaker began to rapidly bubble and foam as sparks from the flame ignited with flammable liquid that had just been added.

Varian reacted quickly, grabbing a stunned Honey Lemon by the wrist and quickly pulling her away. He sprinted out of the lab, dragging her along, as the foaming substance grew larger and swallowed the desk, now mixing itself with the other assortment of chemicals and causing small explosions. Once outside of the doorway he instinctively flung both himself and Honey Lemon to the ground as he felt a rumble behind them. He tried his best to shield her as the now gloopy substance expanded and filled the room with a sloshing, slurpy sound.

Only after a few moments of quiet, where nothing further happened, did Varian roll off of Honey Lemon and hoisted himself on his elbows to see the damage. Bulging out from the doorway was a semi-solid wall of some sort of gelatin like substance, that still steamed and bubbled from the heat of the earlier explosions.

The greenish-yellow tint of the partly translucent substance made Varian sick to his stomach. Had they been caught in that they no doubt would have been smothered or burned by the deadly goop. He heard his heart pound in his ears as it occurred to him that this was the second time he had managed to avoid such a fate.

He heard a sob beside him and turned to see Honey Lemon crying. Now his heart pounded for different reason as he hastily began to check over the girl looking to see how she'd been hurt.

"Honey Lemon? Are.. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do I need to call Baymax?"

"No." She choked.

He swiped a strand of her hair out of her eyes and gently turned her head towards him. He searched her face in worry. "Then what's wrong?"

"I..I blew up the chim lab...again. I thought I could handle two majors but...but I can't…argh...I just want to crawl under the covers and never come out." She buried her face in her hands and groaned.

In spite of himself, relief washed over Varian as it became evident that the only thing that was seriously harmed was Honey Lemon's pride. Though he took no joy out of seeing her upset either.

"Awww Honey, it's okay." He whispered as he gently squeezed her shoulders. "You're just stressed from midterms. Like you said, things will look better by Saturday."

This did not seem to appease her though as she continued to cry into her hands. Varian racked his brain on what he could do or say to make things better. Hesitantly you wrapped her into a hug and she returned it with a sob.

"Oh, Honey Lemon," He encouraged in her ear. ",its gonna be alright. Hey at least no one was hurt right?"

He pulled away from the embrace to give her a small smile but she only returned it with a pout.

Varian sighed, "Look, you're talking to the guy who almost flooded the school remember? This ain't nothing."

That got him a snort of laughter and he flashed her a grin.

"Yeah, I remember." She nodded and finally smiled through her tears.

They locked eyes and for a moment Varian didn't know what to do. All he could do was stare at her transfixed.

Honey Lemon broke the spell herself, "I guess I need to call and tell the chemistry professor what happened she sighed. "Maybe he'll give me an extension."

That knocked Varian out of his stupor. "Yea...yeah, of course he will, and in the meantime I'll help you clean up, okay?"

"Okay." She smiled as he helped her up.

-----------------------------

Cleaning up wasn't as difficult as Varian first feared. The gel like compound naturally broke down over time and washed away easily with water. Though it still took a couple of hours to get it all clear.

Honey Lemon hadn't said much during this time, still embarrassed and tired. As they came down to the last bit of the work, Varian tried to ease the tension.

"Ya know," He said nonchalantly as he mopped the floor,"after a close call like that a person could probably use a stiff drink."

He meant it as a joke but Honey Lemon only stiffened and stopped wiping down the countertop to give him a worried frown.

"....of coffee!" He hastily added. "How about we get some after we finish up here?"

He threw her one of his winsome smiles and Honey Lemon relaxed a little.

"Aren't you still grounded?" She asked.

"Yes, but school doesn't count and there's the cafe in the student lounge." He gave her a wink. "So technically, it's still not breaking the rules."

She smirked and shook her head, "You know you can't find loopholes for everything."

"No, but can't blame me for trying." He sat the mop to the side and grabbed the rag Honey Lemon was using. "What'dya say, hmm?"

"Well, I need something to keep me awake for my last class." She agreed and Varian felt like he'd just won the lottery.

-----------------------------

Varian and Honey Lemon sat together inside the student lounge laughing over nothing in particular. She had cheered up significantly since the incident in the lab and was back to her usual perky self.

At the moment they were having a discussion over which was worse, being too short or too tall.

"But you've never had anyone call you a giraffe before" she good naturedly countered before taking a sip of her iced latte.

"What's wrong with that? Giraffes are cute." Varian shrugged. "At least you don't risk getting accidently stepped on in a crowd."

Honey Lemon rolled her eyes and snickered, "I think you're exaggerating just a little on that one."

"Maybe" He conceded and took a sip of his own coffee, "but it's no fun being told to get out of the way cause no one thinks you're big enough to help; like when they were raising a new barn a few years ago dad just told me to stay out of the way."

"When was this? When you were what thirteen?"

"Twelve."

"Surely you've grown a little taller since then."

"Barely." Varian groaned and took another sip of his drink to hide his embarrassment.

"Well, a least you're not constantly being asked to get things off the high shelves and stuff. Everyone in art class does that and it drives me nuts" She complained.

"Really? Cause if I suddenly woke up taller one day I'd be volunteering to get stuff off high places just to show off."

"I mean, you might. Guys don't stop growing until their like in their late teens or early twenties. Me, I'll never stop being the 'tall girl.'" She made a face, showing her displeasure over the nickname, and reached across the table to the basket of biscotti that they had agreed to share.

As she grabbed one of the Italian sweets she heard Varian say with a shrug, "Ah, you're not even that tall."

She paused mid reach to look at him in surprise and he just stared at her blankly wondering what he had said wrong.

"Thank you!" She blurted out loudly. "OMG, I'm always having to say that! I'm only 5'10". My shoes just make me look taller." She lifted a foot to show off her heels to Varian.

"Then why wear them?" He asked, confused.

"Cause they look cute." Honey Lemon pouted.

Varian shrugged again."Okay…..But no, 5'10", that's like normal height. You're no taller than say Queen Arianna is. You want tall? You should see my dad. He's close to seven feet, and he's still not even the tallest guy I've ever met. The king's actually taller than him and so a whole bunch of other guys in Corona. Now you know why I hate being so short. I'm not even taller than the princess , okay, and she's like the shortest person I know."

Then he paused mid rant and cupped his chin in thought,"Well okay, except for Shorty."

"Soooo are women usually tall or short in your world?" She asked, confused herself now as she had no reference for what Varian was talking about.

"Umm..depends on the person I guess. The tallest woman I ever met is my Aunt Adria. She's my dad's sister and about as tall as he is."

"Wait, you have an aunt?" Honey Lemon asked with concern, "Where's she at? Why didn't she come help you and your dad?"

"Well I haven't seen her since I was like five. I don't know where she is, and it's not like we have phones to call one another. I just remember her because, well, she's kind of hard to forget. She has white hair, carries a huge sword everywhere, and half her face is tattooed solid red."

"Hun…I'm guessing she's pretty … unique then?"

"I guess, all I remember was that she and dad had a big fight over something annnd I never saw her since."

"That's sad." Honey Lemon mused.

"How so?"

"Well she's his sister. I'd hate to have a fight with one of my brothers that's so bad that we'd never talk to one another again."

"Hmm...I... never really thought about it before. I guess cause I don't have any siblings and none of my aunts or uncles were ever really around to begin with."

"You have more aunts?"

"Well no, but I have a couple of uncles that I've never met. After my dad left his home country, he didn't really keep in touch with them."

"That's sad." She reiterated.

"Yeah.." He agreed quietly and took another sip of his coffee as thoughts of his dad ran through his mind. His father had kept most of his past hidden from his son. Varian only knew about his extended family because he had stumbled upon his dad's journal amongst his other things in the trunk that had kept hidden in his quarters, along with the mysterious scroll pecice that the King had hunted him down for.

A lot of secrets had come to light sitting in that dusty room, pouring over the pages filled with his father's words. Answers that only brought up more questions. He still didn't know how to feel about it all. Mostly he was angry that his dad never shared things with him, be they large or small, insignificant or not.

But Honey Lemon's words shone light on a new perspective. How much had leaving hurt? Was it just too painful for his dad to talk about at all, with anyone? Even then he still could have told Varian about the rocks, could have trusted him, and there were still secrets hidden away from him. His mind turned to the note locked away in the amber with his dad and instinctively his free hand balled up into a fist.

Honey Lemon looked on with worry as she saw the cloud behind Varian's as he brooded over something. He kept so much of himself hidden away from everyone. But the pain it caused him was always evident just underneath the surface. Honey Lemon wasn't sure she even wanted to know, given what little he had opted to share thus far. Corona scared her. How could any place be so hard and so cruel? Still she wanted to be there for him. He was her friend after all. She placed a hand on top of the fist that he rested on the table, snapping him out of his melancholy mood.

She gave a wide smile and chriped, "You know once midterms are over and you're un- grounded we should all do something fun."

"Like what?"

She thought a minute."Hmmm..Oh, I know! How about karaoke?"

"What's that?"

"It's where you take turns getting up and singing on stage. It's fun."

"It sounds fun. I'm all for it. But on one condition."

"What?"

"You get some actual sleep before then."

"Oookaaayy…" she rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner and then they both broke down into giggles.

#varian #honey lemon #Hiro Hamada #big hero six #bh6 #bh6 the series #tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #crossover

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princesstadashi · 5 years ago

Text

Big Hero 6 Colorverse AU

(I apologize in advance for the lack of proofreading, I may come back later to do it but I am too tired right now after typing this post to do so ^^;)

Colorverse AU Concept: You know how in animes the heroes always have brightly colored hair and tend to follow certain tropes based on their color (blue = water powers, green = loves nature and peaceful, etc.)? In this world, those heroes aren’t always born heroes--heroes are made by circumstances. Or at least that’s how people think it works. Genetics might be a factor as well (for example, if your parents is/was a hero you might be predisposed to being a hero as well)--the government has invest a lot of money into studying this phenomena. But suffice it to say that when someone who is possibly predestined to be a hero has their catalyst hero moment, their hair and blood both change to the color of their assigned character trope/power. And most heroes aren’t alone--over time they find people of other colors who are destined to be their teammates. It used to happen naturally and these teams saved their cities and sometimes even the world from evil. But that was many, many years ago. Times have changed.

The government decided that, for the “safety” of all, any newly turned heroes are to be brought to government training facilities to “train” and “find their team” before being sent out into the world to be heroes (closely supervised by the government, of course.) Some people blindly believe these lies, saying that heroes being taken away from their family and loved ones is just what’s best for the common good. But most people know the truth: there is nothing natural about this, the government takes these heroes, brainwashes them until they completely forget their true past, stamp out any “imperfections” in their personalities that don’t fit with their assigned traits, and then assigns them to a team based on facts and figures before sending them out to fight various “evils” (often times heroes who escaped who are trying to fight for their freedom.)

Now that we have our universe, let’s introduce our characters:

Tadashi (color: silver): Tadashi became a hero when he was eight. As a silver hero, he is a natural born leader, as well as having a strong sense of intuition (not quite future vision, but he gets flashes of possible outcomes.) His powers came about in a car crash that killed his and his little brother, Hiro’s, parents, and almost killed the both of them as well. Their dad was driving a bit too fast and Tadashi kept begging him to slow down because he had a “bad feeling” but his dad was in a rush and wouldn’t listen. Tadashi had his first major flash of a possible future seeing the car crash only moments before it happened, and he managed to throw himself over Hiro to cushion the impact. Tadashi briefly blacked out, and when he woke up there was silver blood coming from a gash in his arm. After making sure that Hiro was okay, he wrapped himself in a blanket and refused to let anyone remove it until his Aunt Cass arrived.

Aunt Cass (color: white): Aunt Cass had been protesting for heroes’ rights long before she ever became one.Her own hero turn was prompted by Tadashi’s--every team needs an older, wiser, more experienced person to look after them, and that’s what Aunt Cass became for Tadashi (and later Hiro’s) future team. She doesn’t have any explicit powers, but she’s became very good at talking her way out of things and misdirection to keep others from noticing things that they shouldn’t. For example, when Tadashi finally let her see him under the blanket and she saw his silver hair and blood, she managed to convince the police officers to let her drive her boys to the hospital herself instead of taking them in the ambulance where Tadashi would be discovered and taken away. It wasn’t until she had both boys in the car (they could not, of course, go to the hospital, she had to care for them as best she could at home) and they were driving home that she realized that her hair had turned white. At first she thought it might be because of the shock, but eventually she accepted her place as guardian of the team. Like most heroes who were trying to go undiscovered, she promptly bought hair dye for both her and Tadashi and made sure that the roots were touched up on a weekly basis.

Fred (kaiju): The first new member of Tadashi’s team was his best friend from school, Fred. Fred is not a traditional hero. He is, in fact, a kaiju,the result of more recent genetic mutation that started to randomly appear all over the world. Although most kaiju are peaceable and can switch back and forth between kaiu and human form, most kaiju upon discovery of their other form (which doesn’t usually occur until puberty) are immediately taken away and locked up or used as military weapons. Fred got the genetic mutation from his dad, who is also a kaiju--the only reason that his father remained free is because his parents had government connections and enough money to bribe them from keeping the secret ever getting out. Fred knew that he might be kaiju, but no one had known for sure if the gene would pass on. It did, and it was while sleeping over at Tadashi’s house one night when he turned for the first time in the middle of the night. He of course completely panicked, but Aunt Cass and Tadashi managed to calm him down and help him, and of course reassured him that they would never turn him in. That’s when Tadashi finally told him the truth about himself, and Tadashi realized that maybe this was the start of him finding his team--his real team, not one forced on him Fred was of course very excited at the idea of becoming a hero--a real one, and Aunt Cass started helping them train in secret.

Honey Lemon (pink): Honey Lemon was in Tadashi’s chemistry class in high school and discovered her powers when one of her classmate’s chemistry experiments went wrong. She managed to control the chemical overflow and turn it into something benign--no one really saw what she was doing as the room was evacuated, but when Tadashi saw her come out of the room and noticed a pink streak appearing in her hair, he and Fred both rushed her to safety, covering her hair until they could get her back to Aunt Cass’ for her first of many, many dye jobs. Honey Lemon doesn’t fit the typical airheaded pink magical girl stereotype--she may love all things pink and sparkly, but she’s got a genius mind for chemistry, which makes her power being able to control the elements and create brightly colored projectiles from the elements in her surroundings (or the ones she carries in her bag) just that much more potent!

Gogo (yellow): Gogo discovered her powers of speed at a fairly early age, saving her little sister who had run out into the street after an escaped ball from being hit by a tram. Gogo had to figure out how to dye her own hair (knowing that her parents were the type of people who would consider it their “duty” to turn her in), and rebelliously added a streak of purple, partially to make people wonder if she might be a hero but also to throw them off the trail of the real color of her hair. She is by no means your typical friendly and funny yellow hero--she never wanted to join a team, but she made friends with Tadashi in one of her classes at SFIT before knowing that he was also a hero, and once he discovered the truth about her he managed to convince her to join the team.

Wasabi (green): Wasabi’s powers manifested as a result of his anxiety--although he would try not to let the rest of the world see how anxious he was all of the time, as he got older plants would start randomly growing around him whenever the anxiety got to be too much for him. So in a way, the person he ended up saving was himself: once in the middle of a really bad anxiety attack, he locked himself in his room until plants had fully grown all around him, and somehow he managed to find peace being there in his own, safe space, realizing that the plants were trying to comfort him--lavender for calming, lamb’s ears providing a soft cushion, luminescent mushrooms making soft lighting. After that Wasabi stopped being afraid of his powers, but he still struggled to control them and keep his secret, as sometimes his anxiety would get the better of him and plants would start growing again. Tadashi also met him at SFIT and was the first to notice his powers, and of course he immediately invited him to join the team. It took some time for Wasabi to agree, but he finally did. He’s not the serene plant lover that you might expect of a green hero, but he’s learning to be comfortable with himself and the world around him more every day.

Hiro (red): Hiro never really expected powers of his own although he was admittedly a bit jealous when others started joining Tadashi’s team, wishing he could be a part of it himself, which is part of the reason he starts delving into bot fighting like we saw in the movies, only in this case he was hoping to get the chance to be a hero and spark his own powers. He finally gets his wish, but half wishes he hadn’t. The events of the Expo take place, and when Tadashi runs into the burning Expo hall and the explosion happens, that’s when Hiro’s powers finally spark (sorry, unintended pun.) He actually manages to control the fire, keeping Tadashi from dying or even getting burned. As soon as Tadashi realizes what’s happened and sees Hiro’s hair starting to change color, he throws his blazer over Hiro’s head and he and the others rush Hiro back to Aunt Cass’. The events of the movie still play out, only instead of having to invent their own powers, Big Hero 6 becomes the first independent team to take down a supervillain. You can imagine that the government is not happy about there being a vigilante team out there, and the team has to work harder than ever to keep their identities a secret. But they start a chain reaction, helping other hidden heroes like themselves take their lives back and starting to fight back against the unfair system!

#big hero 6 #colorvese #big hero 6 au #tadashi hamada #hiro hamada #aunt cass #fred #honey lemon #gogo #wasabi

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teatime-scans · 5 years ago

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WPS Chapter 6 Text Translations

Hey guys, here are the text translations for Wild Police Stories Chapter 6! We’ve had this chapter in our files for a while and decided to upload these translations while we slowly work through TLC’ing all the other chapters in our ZTT backlog. For reference here’s the rest of the series: https://mangadex.org/title/41916/wild-police-story. Enjoy! TL: Manaphy TLC: Holmes/Spimer

Page 1

Upper text: CASE.6: Without reserve Original Work: Gosho Aoyama Artist: Takahiro Arai

Side text: What is “justice”...? And what is “Strength”...?

Date arc final chapter!

DETECTIVE CONAN Police Academy Arc

“Wild Police Story”

Page 2

Robber: Stop being so slow… Left sign: Bank ATM Front + Ground signs: Delicious and healthy - Deposit now

Robber: Hurry up and move it!

Robber: How much is left? Robber: Around 400-500 grand...

Robber: Now listen up! Every time one of you makes any noise… We’ll kill you off one by one!

SFX: Slam

Side Text: If you aren’t stronger than anyone else, you’ll never be able to enforce justice… Furuya learned the true meaning behind Date’s words. Now, those two are in a predicament...

Page 3

Date: Shit! First of all, I gotta remove these cable ties… SFX: Rustle Rustle

SFX: Slip

Date: I see! With the frictional heat generated by rubbing the shoelaces against the cable tie…

SFX: Rub Rub

SFX: Snap

Date: Not bad, Furuya! SFX: Rip Amuro: Please untie everyone else too!

SFX: Clatter

Amuro: As I thought, it’s locked, huh…? Date: But what is the culprits’ aim?

Page 4

Amuro: It's the money meant to restock the ATM! Amuro: For security purposes, no one is told when the ATM will get restocked… Amuro: ...but by checking the transactions made at the ATM from its surveillance footage, it can roughly be predicted...

Amuro: If they let their friends continuously take money out when there’s less than one million yen left… Amuro: ...someone would rush here to restock the ATM from the bank! Date: Now I see… It's a crime they can't commit without the clerk as an accomplice...

Date: But why aren’t they hiding their faces? Date: The clerk isn’t even wearing sunglasses…|Amuro: They’ll probably want to kill us all when they’re done…

Customer: N-No way… Even though I just came here to buy some water... Customer: I-I came here to buy snacks for my daughter... Date: Don’t worry! We’ll do something!

Date: Anyway, we’ve got to think of a way to escape from here… SFX: Plunk

Amuro: The switchboard!

Amuro: This might do the trick!? Left sign: Bank ATM Front + Ground signs: Delicious and healthy - Deposit now

Page 5

Matsuda: Sure enough...

Matsuda: ...if a thing like that happened, it’s no wonder squad leader Date thinks that his dad’s a wimp…

Hagiwara: Yeah… A policeman on duty knelt down in front of a criminal, after all… Matsuda: Well, it’s not like I don’t get how the leader feels, though…

Matsuda: After all, when my dad was falsely arrested for suspicion of murder… Matsuda: I was continuously called the son of a murderer, and was on the verge of hating my dad too... Sticker: “Murderer”

Matsuda: Although in my case, I was told to “believe in my dad and wait” by the guys from the gym… Matsuda: which helped me go on without having my feelings getting hurt... Hagiwara: Heeeh…

Matsuda: So, Morofushi… Matsuda: I dunno what happened to you in the past, but…

Matsuda: If you tell us about it, our worthless advice… Matsuda: ...might end up being of some help to you, y’know? Morofushi: H...

Page 6

Morofushi: H... Morofushi: E… Morofushi: L… Morofushi: P…

Matsuda: What, right now? Morofushi: T-That’s not it! Morofushi: Look!

Morofushi: The light from the convenience store’s sign… Morofushi: That’s further ahead...

Morofushi: Just like Morse code... SFX: Shoom Sign: NOWSON - Bank ATM

Morofushi: ...it's switching on and off... SFX: Pop

Hagiwara: Oi oi, that’s… Matsuda: ...not really… Matsuda: ...an impression...

Page 7

Woman: Eeeh? No waaay! Sign: Delicious and healthy - Deposit now (mirrored)

Woman: Under renovation!? Man: It can’t be helped, let’s go to another store! Label: Under renovation - Our deepest apologies for the inconvenience. Shop manager

Robber: Looks like the security company’s car passed the traffic lights… Robber: You can go rip off the “under renovation” label anytime now! Robber: Yeah!

SFX: Screech Car inscription: Integrated Security Signs: Delicious and healthy - Deposit now

SFX: Whirl

SFX: Clack

Page 8

Gang: Wassup? ♪

Hagiwara: Oi, seriously? Hagiwara: Ain’t that a rifle? Matsuda: Don’t fret, dude! Matsuda: That’s a fake used in shootin’ movies or somethin’ like that, I’m tellin’ ya!

Morofushi: Hey, hey, what kinda movie ya doin’? Morofushi: Let us take part too! Robber: Ah, no…

Matsuda: A cop role or the likes for me, pop! Robber: A weird trio just barged in… Robber: They’re only three people! Robber: It doesn’t matter, wipe them out!

Page 9

Girl: No way, they’re really shooting a movie!? Girl: That sounds so thrilling, no joke! ♪ Robber: Whaaat!?

Hagiwara: Hey, everyone! They say they’ll let you take part as extras! SFX: Yeaaah

SFX: Thud thud thud

Date: Hey... It’s becoming extremely noisy... Date: What’s going on? SFX: Yeaaah

Morofushi: Sorry for the wait, Zero! Amuro: Hiro! SFX: Ker-chak

Date: H-How? Morofushi: We received the Morse code message from the signboard and came to apprehend the culprits! Morofushi: Not with power...

Page 10

Morofushi: But with numbers…

Amuro: I see now, you made the students from the police academy act as customers and had them gather here… Date: With this, we’ll get another good scolding from Instructor Onizuka tomorrow...

Matsuda: Well, we only did what your dad tried to do back then, leader… Matsuda: Ain’t that right? Hagi! Date: Eh? Hagiwara: Yeah!

Hagiwara: In fact, when your dad was beaten up by a guy looking like a yakuza… Hagiwara: I was in that convenience store too! SFX: Thump Thud

Date: Y-You were there!? At that scene!? Hagiwara: You were preoccupied with your bloodstained dad, so you probably didn’t notice, but… Hagiwara: After that, several friends of that guy entered the store…

Yakuza: Oi, what are you doing!? Yakuza: The cops are coming! Yakuza: Run away! SFX: Wee woo wee woo

Page 11

Hagiwara: Your dad had noticed that a lot of that guy’s accomplices were lurking in a car close to there… Hagiwara: That’s why, even if he had restrained that man… Hagiwara: If his accomplices had come in as reinforcements, he’d have had no chance of winning either…

Hagiwara: If a brawl had started inside the shop, and by any chance they would have been barricaded in there... Hagiwara: The other customers who were inside would’ve been in danger…

Hagiwara: Back then, there were a lot of people… Hagiwara: Like me, who was a kid… Hagiwara: As well as pregnant women, some old people and some female students, after all…

Hagiwara: The police arrived pretty soon, so… Hagiwara: Your old man probably contacted them…

Hagiwara: And wanted to stop the man at the front of the store, without him coming further inside, until the reinforcements of the police arrived!

Hagiwara: So kneeling down was... Hagiwara: ...Not a plea for his life, but… Hagiwara: Something from here, leader... SFX: thump

Hagiwara: Something that nobody can hurt by any means… Hagiwara: ...the heart of a police officer...

Hagiwara: ...made him do that, don’t you think?

Page 12

Date: Hello, dad… Are you alright? Date’s dad: Wataru…? Date’s dad: Why are you suddenly calling me…?

Date’s dad: Eh? There’s a lady you want me to meet? Date’s dad: So you reached that age too…

Date: I’m 22 already… Date: We haven’t seen each other for a while, so I bet you forgot…

Date’s dad: Aside from that, how is it going? Date’s dad: At the police academy… Date’s dad: Do you think that you can become a great policeman? Date: Yeah...

Date: Although I won’t come close to you, Dad... Date’s dad: Hmph… Date’s dad: Stop spouting nonsense...

Side Text: Date got to know about his father’s “strength”. Starting from the next issue… Detective Conan, the original story, resumes!

Left Side box: End of Chapter #6

Bottom box: We will announce the next publication issue in the advance notice of the front page and on WEB Sunday. We are counting on you for “Detective Conan Police Academy Arc ‘Wild Police Story’ ” from now on as well.

#wps #wataru date #matsuda #morofushi #hagiwara #amuro tooru #text translations #detective conan #translations

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lovetvshowsposts · 6 years ago

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A Variro Story CH 1

Description: Varian (Tangled the Series) is a transfer from Germany and new to San Fransokyo and the Institute of Technology and the second 14-year-old to be inducted in the school. He tries to keep things under control, so people won’t find out his secret. Hiro can handle being a student and hero but now with these unknown feelings and them being toward the new guy he doesn’t quite know what to do. (I swear the story is better than the description) AU (Hiro X Varian=Variro)

This story is based off of Tumblr user @sinningcookie ship of Hiro and Varian (Variro). Be sure to check out the art that has been done of these two it’s amazing. If I was good at drawing, I would have made a Variro comic but here is the story of how the two meet, become boyfriends and each other’s heroes. Complete AU from both of the series but they are represented in ways throughout this story.

Beep beep! Beep beep!

Eyes open slowly at the sound of an annoying noise as it continues to sound. Until they land upon the source. The clock says 7:45AM making the eyes shoot right open. “Ah no, I’m going to be late!!” shouts Hiro as he jumps out of bed grabbing papers and cloths as he looks for his backpack. He finds it hanging on his chair and starts to stuff everything into it, which makes the chair roll right onto his foot. “Ow!” He hops backwards to his bed holding his foot.

The beeping from the other side of the room drew his attention. Baymax opens his eyes to see all of Hiro’s room and the state he was in. He steps out of his charging port and goes to Hiro. “Hiro on a scale of one to ten how would you rate your pain?” he proceeds to show the chart on his chest.

“I don’t have time Baymax, I’m late!! Hiro quickly gets up and starts to get dressed. “Why didn’t you wake me up, anyway? The emergency alarm had to wake me.”

“The average amount of sleep the human body needs is eight hours. You went to bed at two AM by my calculations you need another two hours to function properly.”

“I know Baymax, but I have papers, projects and classes that need to be done.” Hiro argues as he finishes tying his shoe, he gets up and sprints for the stairs. As he was about to leave, Hiro remembers to grab his bag and Baymax in tow.

The Lucky Cat Café was as busy as usual for a Monday morning. All the tables were packed as Aunt Cass tries to cut time by loading up a tray full of coffees and pastries. She walks past the doorway that leads to their upstairs living quarters.

Hiro comes out of nowhere, yelling “Bye Aunt Cass. Sorry no hugs, I’m late.” Running right by his aunt who is able to dodge him, but once Baymax bumps into her she begins to fall, just taking the tray with her, until a helpful hand saves the both of them.

“Woah that would have been a disaster. Are you ok?” a feminine voiced stranger says as she helps pick up the tray and Aunt Cass.

“Yeah I’m fine but when you have a nephew; somethings can go crazy. Ah thank you…” Aunt Cass looks to the young lady that was in front of her as she is helped up. She wore black boots that led to grey skinny jeans. They were held with a brown belt with the most peculiar belt buckle; a circle with three lines on it. As she is still being lifted Cass see a maroon shirt that was tucked in and a black leather jacket covering the rest of the stranger. Cass’s finally helped all the way up get the reveal of the stranger’s face seeing pale skin, dark pink lips, hazel eyes and raven hair that is in a bob-cut of layers with grey highlights. Which Aunt Cass thought had to be the girl’s choice of dying it because the stranger seems to be the age of 23. And that much grey hair on her did not seem natural.

The stranger finally offers her name. “Cassandra, and I kind of am going to be going through the same thing as I watch my friends’ kid.” Cassandra fully gives control to the tray back to Aunt Cass, as she walks to drop off coffee and pastries at tables.

“Ah, are you new here? I haven’t seen you around.” Cass asks as Cassandra follows her.

“No, I’ve lived here for a while and have heard about your place. But I’m just not really a coffee person.”

Cass asks bewildered “Then what brings you in?” as she sets the last pastry down.

“You evidently have a tea other places don’t carry that helps my friend’s kid calm down. With it being his first day at a new school, he’s a bit nerves so…” Cassandra was cut off by a long car honk that came from outside.

“Speak of the devil. That’s him now, can I get a large?”

“Say no more; I’m on it.” Aunt Cass proceeds to make the tea as quickly as she could.

“Alright, Baymax, I’ll be back after classes. The others might drop by throughout the day. See ya!! Hiro says as he closes the door to Tadashi’s lab and runs to Professor Granville’s class. He makes it through the door before he could be marked late.

“You; barley made it, Mr. Hamada. Note; being punctual will help you be able to keep a job in the future, even if you are working for yourself.” Professor Granville states as she pulls her lecture up on to the screen.

Hiro lets out a relived breath as he walks to his seat. He pulls out his notebook and pencil for the lecture. The class was going normally until almost the end of class. There was a knock at the classroom door. Everyone looks to Professor Granville. She looks to the door window.

“Ah yes, come on in Mr. Müller.” The whole class had their eyes on the door as it slowly opens. A young boy walks to Professor Granville. Hiro too, stares as the guy walks by. Noting of what he could see, the student wore many layers of baggy clothes all consisting of teal and black.

A teal beanie sat on his shaggy black hair. His bangs covered a majority of his face. But one strand stood out because it was blue. He held a few notebooks in one hand against his chest and a plastic cup in the other. Hiro took a closer look to see the logo. It was from the Lucky Cat Café. Hiro’s scrutinizing gaze was broken when Granville spoke; “Now class, I don’t normally introduce new students, but this is Varian Müller a 14-year-old transfer from Germany. As you can see, he doesn’t quite know campus so if one of you could show him around?” She looks around the room to see if anyone will volunteer. Instead of volunteering everyone starts whispering.

Hiro looks around making out some of the whispering conversations that were: “He’s young.” “Is his look a fashion statement?” “Why did he transfer?” “What’s his major.” He then looks back to Varian to sees the guy was shrinking in on himself and the cups contents he was holdings was swishing around a bit. Hiro noted probably from being nervous.

Just as Professor Granville was about to speak a happy go lucky “I’ll do it!” came from Hiro’s right. He looked over to see Karmi the 18-year-old bio-tech prodigy. She was all to giddy to be the guide this new kid. No doubt to find out what he studies, or he must be new competition for her. Hiro thought as he watches her head to the front of the room.

“Thank you Karmi. Alright class that is all for today’s lesson don’t forget to do pages nine though thirteen of your textbooks.” Granville states as class is dismissed.

“Argh; finally; the hard part of my day is over!!” Hiro reports as he enters the lab hands full of his textbooks and new project parts. He sets them down on the closest table knocking some other papers and blueprints over to the already messy floor. He wipes his forehead with his jacket sleeve as he looks around the room seeing Fred laying upside down on a chair reading a comic as Baymaxs watches.

All of a sudden Fred pops up saying “Hey! What about this; could a person survive a blast of magma from there hands?” asks Fred excitedly.

“The probability of magma emanating from a person’s hands is nonexistent they would suffer from third degree burns from the surrounding tissue and…”

Baymax was cut off when Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Gogo all barged into the lab. “Did you hear about the new guy!” Squeals Honey Lemon. “I heard he was too smart for his old school so that why he’s here.”

“Yeah this kid’s got a so many awards he’s probably going to win all the ones here.” Wasabi chimes in.”

“I heard he is an alien from the planet Malgo an here to suck out our brains!” Fred says enthusiastically as he walks over to Gogo trying to scary her.

“No.” Voices Gogo as she stops him from getting closer by putting her hand on his chest.

“Freddy were you feeling left out because you don’t know what we’re talking about?” implies Honey Lemon.

“Yes; No; Maybe?” Fred shrinks down after each word knowing his guess were way off. Which made everyone silent until Gogo announces “I just heard he was from Germany.”

“Wait you guys are talking about the transfer uh Varian…uh…Varian Miller.”

“It’s pronounced Mueller since he’s from Germany Hiro.” Politely corrects Honey Lemon.

“Whatever he’s Karmi’s new competition so I don’t care what his name is.” Hiro starts to dig through a box of parts to get started on a project.

“Oh, so you didn’t hear?” States Gogo as she crosses her arms.

“Hear what?” Hiro looks to his friends in confusion while he was still digging. Fred shrugs because he is just as much in the dark as he is.

“Karmi released a whole report about this kid. Its on the schools blog.” Wasabi pulls out his phone and shows Hiro. The screen shows a quick snapshot of the kid trying to block the camera with his fingerless gloved hands. With the title New Prodigy Hits Campus! Before he could read anymore Wasabi took it away saying. “It says the kid went to Berlin’s Institute of Technology our number one competitor. He’s won all sorts of awards. Until a mysteries accident caused half the school to be decommissioned. He’s now here to continue his studies.”

“Did he actually tell Karmi this?” Hiro asks as he pulls out the tool he was looking for.

“I don’t think so. I saw Karmi in the library on the computer.” Gogo says as she blows a bubble from her gum. Hiro walks over to some parts that he has on a table and starts his project.

“What I’m shocked is he’s majoring in Chemical Engineering and Robotics. Two majors is suicide at this school!”

As soon as the word Robotics left Honey Lemons mouth, he froze. “What is he majoring?”

She repeats herself “Chemical Engineering and Robotics.”

“Ha looks like you finally have some competition man.” Fred blurts out. They all start to continue to talk about the new guy which seems to just fade to a hum to Hiro as things were swimming around his mind. He puts his tools down and walks to the door. “I’m going to go get some gummy bears I’ll be right back.” If his face gave away sign of irritation his friends didn’t see it as they said see ya and went back to their conversation. But Baymax knew and he follows Hiro.

“Hiro my scans indicate that you are slightly irritated. What is irritating you?” Baymax asks.

“Nothing buddy just got a lot on my mind.” He says subdued until he states, “But not as much as that new guy I bet he won’t be able to last a week handling such difficult classes.” Brightening his spirits as he walks to the vending machine.

Two Weeks Later…

“Man did you hear Varian made a…”

“That kid is smarter than anyone here.”

“Varian just combined a …”

“Varian”

“Aaaaaa” Shouts Hiro as he slams his head on the table. “Make it stop!” he muffles.

“Hey, did you hear…” Fred asks till he is cut off by Hiro.

“YES, I heard he made a unstoppable robot, he is smarter than anyone else here, I even heard that he is the cutest one here. And I’m here to say; I have had enough. I’m going to challenge him to show this nerd school who is the true prodigy of SFIT!” Hiro stomps out of the lab Baymax following behind him.

“I was just going to say they had free tacos at the cafeteria.” Fred announces to an empty lab as he takes a bite out of one of his tacos.

#big hero 6 #big hero six #hiro hamada #hiro #tangled the series #varian #crossover #big hero 6 the series

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raendown · 5 years ago

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A gift for @a-kid-named-hiro who is forever kind, always thoughtful, and deserves all this world has to give.

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 2514 Rated: M Summary: Cicatrix [sik-uh-triks] Noun. New tissue that forms over a wound and later contracts into a scar. Kintsukuroi. The art of beautiful scars. A Japanese art using precious metals to repair broken pottery, creating something that is more beautiful for having been broken.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Cicatrix (Kintsukuroi)

It’s deep in the heart of summer and the dust is so heavy in the air it nearly coats his tongue with every panting breath but Tobirama can’t find it in him to care, can’t slow his breathing enough to close his mouth and doesn’t want to. He bends his spine to curl tighter against Madara's body and presses his face against the thick man of hair that first caught his attention so long ago. After all the years of confusion and flirting and mind games he has the man right where he wants him at last.

Pressed up against the wall of this too-warm bedroom, gasping for air and praying to a god who probably can’t hear him. A roll of his hips brings another round of vicious prayers from Madara's lips and Tobirama grins as he pulls back to slam their mouths together. Nothing has ever made his blood boil quite like Madara biting at his lips, fierce even when he is cornered, fire and heat and attitude all crushed together inside a body of only average height. Tobirama wants to stay here like this forever, wants to remember for the rest of his life what it feels like to press so close he can almost feel their hearts crashing together through their ribs.

Tongues slide against each other like the leather sliding through Madara's belt loops, a slow glide no matter how the man begs him to hurry the hell up. He’s waited long enough to have this that Tobirama thinks he should be allowed to take all the time he wants to enjoy it, to burn every moment of this in to his memory.

He wants to remember the way humidity makes the edges of Madara's hair curl and stick to his skin. Wants to remember the taste of dust and salt and the burn of dollar store cologne in his nose. He wants to lie awake at night and remember the feeling of blunt nails pressing in to the tops of his shoulders and dragging down the backs of his arms only to pause and loosen when he tilts his head to nip at already abused lips. Surely this is paradise, messy and uncoordinated, rough and glorious and closer to heaven than he has ever climbed before.

Getting Madara out of his shirt is a fight, cotton tangling with hair while the man stubbornly keeps his back to the wall and refuses all offers to help untangle him. Tobirama amuses himself instead by attacking the chest bare and undefended before him while Madara struggles to free his arms. The flush on his partner’s cheeks when they finally come in to view again has nothing on the color they gain when he goes for the button on too-tight pants.

It’s not the first time they’ve kissed, hardly the first time they both understood the tension between them would explode someway or somehow, but it’s the first time Tobirama had seen all this skin laid out for him like a map, every inch a new and valuable treasure just waiting to be discovered. He tastes and touches as though this will be their last time. Movements frantic and hearts beating wild, they writhe against the wall of the same bedroom Madara has lived in since high school. So many times in the past Tobirama has dreamed of this moment happening here in this place and now that the moment is his he wants to capture it in his teeth and never let go, to hold it there where the words he wants to say lie stagnant on his tongue, things he can’t bear to let out until he knows it is safe.

Until he knows Madara feels the same and this isn’t a flashfire, burning bright and hot and sudden only to sputter out just as quickly as it lit.

As bare on his skin as he is in his heart, Tobirama drags his fingers up the line of Madara's cock and devours the sight of the man shuddering at his touch. Presses them hard against the wall just because he can. Then pulls away and spins Madara to press him against the wall again so he can rut in to the cleft of that glorious ass. Hands settle on hips to stop them from bucking against him as he bends his neck to nose at the hair spilling down Madara's back.

He nearly loses his teeth when Madara panics and tries to head butt him.

“Shit, Mads, what the fuck?”

“Don’t touch that! Don’t touch it!” There’s an edge in his voice that Tobirama has never heard before and it makes him step back.

Gasping for breath looks a lot less sexy when it pairs with wild eyes and the expression of an animal expecting the trap to close on them at any moment. Madara huddles his side to the wall as if cowering away, breaking Tobirama’s heart with one look.

“Hey, whoa, it’s fine. I’m over here now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Stop touching my neck!” Madara shrieks.

“No one is touching anything if you don’t want me to.” Tobirama pauses and his eyes zero in on the space between his partner’s shoulder blades. He’s never seen Madara's back before. It’s never really occurred to him as strange with all that hair in the way but now that he thinks about it he’s never seen the man wear his hair up or pulled back in any way, always free falling and covering him like a veil of secrets.

Keeping his hands down and his stance non-threatening, he moves to the side until he stands square in Madara's field of view and then keeps himself as still as possible.

It feels like it takes a hundred years for his partner to stop heaving for breath as though he’s running out of air and the wild, haunted look in his eyes doesn’t ever fully go away but Tobirama forces himself to stay patient and murmurs soothing nonsense until he feels it’s probably safe to ask a question or two. A quick glance at the clock tells him that eternity lasted only for about five minutes. He has trouble believing that. It can’t have been only five minutes ago he was writhing and excited and ready to finally come together the way he’s been dreaming about for ages.

They’re both entirely naked still but the awkwardness is in Madara's stance, prey cringing away from an imagined predator.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” he asks and hates to see his partner flinch.

“I don’t like anyone touching my neck.” A flat statement. Empty tone. Information with no inflection from a man who usually brims with just as many emotions as his best friend, though he doesn’t express them quite like Hashirama does.

Phrasing his question tactfully should probably occur to Tobirama but he’s startled enough by a revelation he’s never seen any hint of that all he says is, “Why?”

The silence between them in heavy on his tongue, weighs in his chest like lead. Tobirama watches his partner struggle with the words choking his throat and realizes that it hurts – aches – to see him in pain, especially so when he cannot see the source of it. With careful movements he inches his way forward and reaches out, relieved more than words can express when Madara does not pull away, stepping forward until he can draw the man in to his arms and hold tight, making sure not to disturb his hair.

His answer is a long time in coming but he waits. Tobirama has the patience of an oak and he will spread his roots for Madara and stand here until time batters him back down to the earth if that’s what he needs to do.

“We were pretty young,” Madara begins, turning his face away and speaking to the wall. “Izuna screamed a lot and the guy – we got mugged. He had a gun. And some wire. I remember the way he looked at Izuna, like he wanted the noise to stop and he didn’t care how. We were just kids. I thought it was a good idea; I just started making more noise than Izuna so he would pay attention to me instead.”

“A brave thing for a child to do,” Tobirama tells him.

“Stupid! I didn’t know for sure he was going to do anything to Izuna but then of course I start shouting my head off and he–” The words cut off abruptly, like a knife shaving the syllables away before they’re finished.

Long moments pass before Madara reaches for the mass of hair behind him and very carefully pulls it forward over one shoulder. His eyes stare determinedly at the wall. Tobirama hates it so much he almost doesn’t look to see what has been revealed but when he does his blood runs cold. Runs hot. Rushing through his veins like the high octane races his youngest sibling loves to watch, circling and circling, forever only moments away from certain disaster. Rage fills him until he feels as though he must be swollen with it and yet he cannot speak a single word.

The scar is thick and long across the back of his neck, a cord of stretched out pink tissue that will never quite fade to the same color as the rest of his skin. One look at it is all he needs to know that the mark is old but also that whatever caused it must have taken a great deal of pain.

Madara's words are halting when they come and Tobirama drinks every syllable in like a draught of calm, taking comfort in the familiar rhythms of the man’s speech and feeling guilty for it. He isn’t the one who should need comfort right now.

“It went all the way around. My mother wouldn’t let me see any of the pictures from the crime scene even when I got older. He didn’t really know how to choke someone and he kept releasing me just before I passed out and then – and then trying again. Izuna ran away to get help but he’d already started hurting me and I think in the trial he said that he thought leaving me alive would make it worse somehow.” Madara breathes deeply, each word more distant than the last. “I’m told they grafted skin on to the front of my neck, a big swatch from my lower leg, but there was a complication with the surgery and they never had a chance to do the same for the rest. After that we just could never afford to go back for something the doctors said was just cosmetic.”

“Mads…”

“It’s fine. I just don’t like anything touching the back of my neck, okay?”

“That is anything but fine,” Tobirama says. Everything in him wants to take away the pain he can see so clearly stamped across that beloved face.

Huffing indignantly, Madara finally meets his eyes again. “Just don’t touch the scar, okay?”

“You can trust me on that.” Solemn words for a heartfelt promise.

Uncomfortable, unhappy to have the darkest part of him exposed so unexpectedly, Madara sighs and drops his head against the strong shoulder waiting for him. Tobirama is only too happy to let him. He folds the man even tighter in to his embrace and closes his eyes with a silent vow that nothing will ever happen to his partner ever again, that he will fight the world itself before allowing any harm to Madara, who has already seen so much in less than three decades of life.

For a long time the two of them stand there in silence and let the weight of Madara's past settle over them and Tobirama hopes until his throat closes with the feeling of it that he will be allowed to help carry that burden in the future.

With the mood ruined they eventually get dressed but Tobirama can’t find it in himself to be disappointed. He’s seen a different side of Madara than he had expected to be trusted with and that is more of a gift than he could express no matter the sadness of it. Covered again yet feeling raw in a way he can’t explain, Tobirama looks at the man standing proudly after all the things he’s been through and finds the words spilling over his lips before he can stop them.

“I love you.” He feels his eyes go wide when Madara turns to look at him in shock and more words spill out, a tidal wave against the reticence that holds his tongue on any other day. “Whatever this is between us, I don’t care. I love you, I want you, I would still love you if you had a hundred scars and I don’t care if you need me to not touch them or whatever. Just how you are is perfect and if anyone has ever told you any different just because of a stupid line on your neck that you earned then–”

“Gods, stop, please.” Madara turns his head away a little and his cheeks are flushed like a summer burn.

“Oh, I…should I not have…?”

“Don’t. It’s fine. You’re embarrassing. It’s just a scar!”

Tobirama blinks, pauses, turns his own head to conceal the tiny smile growing at the corners of his mouth when he finally understands Madara's reaction. His concern is not as unappreciated as the interruption led him to assume, heart nearly stopping in his chest at the thought of impending rejection. Now he knows better.

“It’s a part of you and that makes it beautiful,” he murmurs just to watch the red color of his partner’s skin deepen until the man hides his face entirely this time. Embarrassment has never been Madara's friend.

“Just stop talking. You’re fine too if you need to hear it!”

Turning to press a kiss against messy damp hair, Tobirama whispers with gratitude rough in his voice, “It’s always nice to hear that.”

He knows this isn’t the last time they will speak of this or the last dark secret hiding underneath that permanent scowl he loves so much. Knows that they have many burdens between them and both of their baggage will be heavier some days than others. He knows that not everything will be perfect just because he finally knows for sure that Madara has opened his heart as surely as he holds Tobirama’s in the palm of his hands.

And it isn’t that none of that matters but that in this moment Tobirama knows that it is worth it. There will come a time when things are hard and he will fight through those times with bloody knuckles and gritted teeth because Madara is worth it.

“I love you,” he whispers one more time.

“Yeah, yeah,” his partner grumbles. “I love you too…”

No precious stones or gold or riches could ever possibly have more value to him than those words whispered against the cotton of his t-shirt, honest and quiet and only for him.

#rae writes #madatobi #tobirama #madara #modern au #fanfiction

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takerfoxx · 5 years ago

Text

IM Swiftly Descending Darkness, Chapter 5

Mokou already felt that something was wrong, and the moment she came into view of the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home all but confirmed it.

The house was quiet. The lights were on, all of the outside lanterns were lit, but there was no one in sight. The surrounding fields and the garden were all empty.

If there was something that could be counted on at the orphanage, it was that it was never quiet. Even in the evening after the kids had been brought it one could count on seeing someone about, such as Joshua up on a ladder along the side of the house, repairing a loose window, or Haruna relaxing on the porch.

But there was nobody in sight, and while it was late afternoon, it was still before the time when the kids would be brought in.

Mokou felt a rare flash of fear, a very rare sensation for her. She tightened her fists and threw everything into a final burst of speed.

The house rushed up to her. She spun around, directed her feet toward the front path, and hit the ground running. From there, she sped up the path, her bare feet kicking up clouds of dust, and leapt up the stairs toward the-

Front path.

Mokou skidded to a stop and looked around in bewilderment. Now she was facing away from the house, as if she had been running away from it instead of toward.

Also, she was pretty sure she had heard someone yell “Ow!” from inside.

Mokou turned back toward the house. For the most part it looked the same, but there did seem to be something off about it, something she hadn’t noticed coming in.

Tilting her head to one side, Mokou squinted her eyes. Sure enough, all around the front porch were strange refractions of light, rippling out like the surface of a pond disturbed by a pebble.

Huh.

Mokou took a slow, deliberate step forward into the field of disorientation. Her vision quickly spun around, and she found herself facing away from the porch again. At the same time, someone yelped, “Damn it!”

It Mokou a moment to realize what was going on. That had to be Haruna. Haruna’s particular gift was the ability to essentially flip reality, to turn it back around on people. Which sounded like something that would be immensely useful, but unfortunately she was unable to maintain it over a large area for very long, and if anyone or anything actually got flipped by it, it gave her a massive headache.

Rather than subject her friend to a skull-splitting migraine, Mokou cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hey! It’s me! Let me in!”

Immediately a clamor of voices sounded within. “It’s Miss Mokou!” she heard Tomohiro say. “Let her in! Quick!”

“How do we know it’s actually her?” Shinji retorted. “Maybe it’s another youkai, one that just sounds like her!”

Melissa said something very quick and frantic-sounding in Spanish.

Rolling her eyes, Mokou called out again. “Look, either you guys let me in, or I’m gonna start walking toward the porch over and over again until Haruna’s head splits like an egg, okay? It’s me!”

“That’s her,” Satoko’s voice said. “Let her in, Haruna.”

The shimmers dropped, and Mokou heard the sound of the front door’s heavy lock being unbolted.

She rushed inside. There, she saw the most of the kids huddled into a tight group while some of the other adults stood protectively over them. Mokou hastily shut the door behind her and relocked it.

“What happened?” she demanded.

Haruna was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase with her aching head clutched with one hand, with Haruhi standing over her, holding onto her other hand. Sniffing, Haruhi glowered at Mokou with wet and puffy eyes. “Where were you?” she said.

“What? I was getting information like I said I would!”

“Well, you should have been here! You could’ve stopped this, stopped them from…from…”

“Enough!” Satoko said. She was standing with Akito crying in her arms, her normally stern features now a mix of anger and fear. “This isn’t the time to tear into one another! I know we’re all scared and upset, but I’m the one who asked Mokou to go look for answers. If you have to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”

Haruhi just shook her head and ran off.

Mokou took a deep breath and hissed it out through her teeth. “What. Happened?”

“It was youkai,” Satoko said. Her eyes were wet with tears, her face shimmering with sweat. “Wild spider youkai apparently. Five of the kids accidentally wound up outside of the charms during flying lessons. The spiders just…just showed up and took them.”

Mokou looked over the group and took a quick headcount. Noba was sitting in a nearby chair, his head in his hands, with his friends Shinji, Tomohiro, and Kazuchika with him. Check. The younger boys, specifically Yoshi, Hiro, Keiichi, Dai, and Yuuki, were in another group, whispering amongst themselves. Check. Melissa, the only girl present, was pacing back and forth, wringing her hands together as she muttered under her breath in her native language. Check, And Akito was in Satoko’s arms. Check.

However, more than five children were gone. Both of the terrible trios were absent, as was Melissa’s fellow oddball Kana.

“Who?” she said.

Satoko sighed. “Hayate, Haruko, Eiko, Kana, and Keine.”

Each name felt like a hammer-blow to her heart, but when she got to Keine Mokou felt something hot and powerful unlock deep within her. Because while she was fond and protective of all the children, Keine was kind of her favorite. Keine had been part of the trio that had rescued her from the snow in the first place. Keine had been the first to reach out to her after she had been brought in, the first to form any kind of relationship with her when all the other children had been too scared to talk to the mysterious and dangerous stranger now in their midst.

“What about the rest?” Mokou said. “Where’s Kohta and Rumia?”

“Upstairs,” Satoko said. “They, uh, understandably wanted to be alone.”

Right, that made sense. After all, it was their friend that had been taken.

Five kids. Five little girls, taken by spider youkai.

Mokou knew the habits of wild spider youkai, she knew them very well. Some spiders were nice. Some were quite friendly people, in fact. But others were not. Others were the sort that did terrible things to other people, that did terrible, horrible, absolutely monstrous things to children. And she felt quite certain that these were of that latter category.

Mokou closed her eyes and mentally counted down from ten. “And you just let them?” she snapped before she had even gotten to four.

Haruna quickly cut in. “We did everything he could, kid,” the rough-looking woman said. “Joshua tried to stop them, we both did. But they were ready for us. Hit us with some kind of web. Then they just flew off.”

Joshua. He was missing too. And so was Shion.

“Where is Joshua?” Mokou said. “And where’s Shion?”

“Shion flew to go get help,” Satoko told her. “Old Pine Village still supports us, and it’s the closest, so she went there.”

Old Pine Village. Right. That also made sense, but Satoko had only answered one of her questions. “And Joshua?”

Satoko bit her lower lip. “He went after them.”

The air around Mokou was starting to grow hazy. She heard several of the children whispering to one another, saw them draw away from her. “After them,” Mokou repeated. “After whom? To where?”

“The youkai. He went after the youkai. He said that he couldn’t let them take…take them to…”

Of course he did. Mokou closed her eyes. “And where did the youkai come from?” she said, her eyes still shut. “Where did they take the kids?”

“We don’t really-”

Mokou’s eyes snapped open. The haze around her vision was now a film of red.

Satoko gasped and backed away. Akito stopped crying, and just stared.

“I know,” Mokou growled. “I know where they came from. I know where they took them. The Youkai Forest. Of course it is.”

“Mokou, your eyes,” Satoko said as she covered Akito’s with her hand. “They’re glowing!”

Mokou knew this. Mokou didn’t care. “They took them to the Youkai Forest, and Joshua went after them! That’s where they are now, that’s where he is now, isn’t it?”

Satoko’s mouth wordlessly opened and closed like a fish’s, then she stuttered. “Y-Y-Yes, th-that does seem to be the most likely-”

“Most likely my ass! Look, I’ve spent the last few days hunting down whatever news I could, and what I found out is that some weird shit is going on in that damn forest, and someone from outside the forest is causing it!”

“Wait, say that again?” Haruna said. “You mean to tell me-”

“I said what I said, now get out of my way!” Mokou roared.

Haruna backed up. She hadn’t backed away from anyone in years, but she did so now, though not quick enough. Mokou shoved her aside and made for the stairs.

Children parted like ants from a flood, and Haruna hastily made herself scarce. Mokou stomped her way up, leaving blackened footprints sizzling on every step.

She was coming close to losing it. She was coming close to losing all control and just letting the raging fires that burned within her at all times just burst free. That didn’t happen often. Even at her most violent, when her life had been an unceasing cycle of pain and death, she had been careful to restrict it to a single person, someone who both deserved it and could take it.

But there had been a small handful of times, oh so very few, in which she had been pushed too far, when all other options had failed, when she had been confronted by an evil so sickening that her own monstrous soul paled in comparison and the only option was to cleanse everything with fire.

Mokou was not at the point yet. But she was getting close.

She threw open the door to her room and went straight for her dresser. She yanked the bottom drawer straight out and hurled it aside. Then she reached into the empty cavity and pulled out a small oak box.

It was this box that she set on the bed and opened up. Inside were two stacks of aging, yellow paper rectangles, all covered with a series of characters. In between them was a pile of old red-and-white ribbons. The characters on the left-hand stack were all the same, indicating them to be charms that protected against fire. Similar characters were written on the ribbons.

Mokou took those charms and stuck them all over her pants. Then she picked up one of the ribbons and muttered a word. In response, the entire pile fluttered up into the air. They surrounded her like a swarm of butterflies, and then dove in, tying themselves into bows through her long locks of hair. Mokou anticipated violence where she was going, and that meant a great deal of fire was probably going to be slung around. If that happened, then she’d rather not come home naked.

The second stack was smaller, and the runes and glyphs inscribed on each card was different. They were spellcards, each one containing an easily unleashed burst of offensive magic. Along with the glowing magical bullets known as danmaku, Spellcards were the preferred weapon of Gensokyians, and having a few on hand could be the difference between life and death.

Mokou picked up her stack of spellcards. She flourished them like a magician playing a trick to impress children, folded them back up again, and stuck them into her pocket. All right. Now she was ready to go.

Then, before she went through the door, she paused. Wait a minute.

Mokou took the cards out of her pocket and inspected them. It was as she had thought. She was supposed to have twelve cards, but there were only nine. Three of them were missing.

“Satoko!” she yelled.

“What?” Satoko was already at the door, sans Akito. “What is it?”

“My spellcards!” Mokou thrust the nine she had at her. “Who took them?”

Satoko blinked in confusion. “What do you mean? You’re holding them.”

“Only some! Three are missing! Did Joshua take them?”

“Uh, no? H-He took one of the usual anti-youkai packs we have in storage. I don’t think he even knew you had those.” Satoko frowned. “Actually, I didn’t know you had those. Did you have a stash of spellcards this whole time?”

Mokou barely heard the question. Her mind was racing, filtering through the list of likely culprits.

She ruled out Satoko, Haruna, and Haruhi immediately. Of the three, only Satoko had ever even been in her room, and if she had taken her spellcards she would have told her without apology. Besides, she probably would have taken the whole deck if it meant protecting the kids.

Shion, maybe? To give her some extra protection on her trip? Incredibly unlikely. Shion also had never been in her room and had no way of knowing of her stash. So it had to be one of the kids. But which one would-

“Wait,” she said. “Wait, wait, wait. You said Rumia and Kohta are up here, right?”

“Well, yes,” Satoko said. “They had locked themselves in the playroom. But-”

Then realization washed over her face, draining it of color. Her hand went to her mouth, and she turned and ran.

“Kohta!” Mokou heard her calling. “Rumia? Answer me!”

Mokou didn’t follow. She didn’t need to. She already had pieced together what had happened.

Those little idiots. Those brave, loyal, infuriating idiots!

The spiders had five of their kids. There was one adult looking for them, and he was just as helpless as they were in his own way. And apparently two more kids had gone in on their own.

That was eight people she needed to find in a large and dense forest, eight people that were in very mortal danger and weren’t even all in the same place.

When Satoko returned to Mokou’s room after having confirmed that Rumia and Kohta were nowhere in the house, she found it empty with the window shattered outward and a trail of smoke still rising in the open air beyond, one that led all the way to the Youkai Forest.

…

Rumia and Kohta’s decision to sneak out and go after the spiders that had taken their friends had been easy enough. After that display in the market, they could not trust anyone to come to their aid, and while Mr. Joshua was a good guy, he wasn’t exactly the first person that they would have selected to mount a successful rescue operation, especially by himself.

Getting out of the house had been easy. Mr. Joshua and Miss Shion were both gone, Miss Haruna had her hands full with shielding the house, Miss Haruhi was a flustered wreck, and all of Miss Satoko’s attention was given to trying to keep things in order. So the second no eyes were on them, they had broken into the emergency defense closet, already left conveniently unlocked by Mister Joshua, and took a pair of anti-youkai knives and some charms. Then Kohta had snuck up into Miss Mokou’s room to raid her own stash of weapons, coming away with three of her spellcards.

Once they had been appropriately armed, the two of them had crept into the basement, stole through the larders to the outside door so as to bypass Miss Haruna’s shield, and off they went.

It had been so easy, but when the two of them were actually away from the fields and taking their first steps into the forest, Rumia found herself kind of wishing that there had been more resistance. After all, the Youkai Forest was not quite as notorious as its larger and darker cousin, the Forest of Magic, but its reputation was plenty dark enough.

As it was in the middle of autumn, most of the trees had shed their needles, with left the pair with plenty of moonlight to see by. It was a small comfort. The naked branches reminded Rumia far too much of gnarled skeletons grasping at the sky with bony fingers. The ground was painfully uneven and covered with a thick layer of rotting needles and bark, which made moving forward slow and tedious. Though morning was still hours away, a wispy mist lay around the trees’ base, further slowing their progress.

And of course, there were the noises.

Every hoot of an owl, every snap of a twig sent shivers down the two children’s spines. Rumia had heard plenty of stories of children who wandered into woods such as this and were never seen again, at least not in one piece. Normally she loved those stories, with their macabre tones and gory endings. But it was one thing to recount such ghastly tales to her trembling friends while using her scary voice and laughing at how much it made them shake. It was something else entirely to be willingly stepping foot into one of those tales herself.

Then there were the other stories, the ones with similar set-ups but different endings, the ones in which the lost children would also never come home, but not because they were killed, but because the forest ended up changing them, turning them into something other than human, dooming them to forever wander the forest’s dark paths, looking to become the monster in someone else’s story.

Though she would never admit it, those were the stories that scared Rumia the most. Her own family had been killed by marauding youkai. Had any of them been lost children themselves? What if the same happened to her? What if she were doomed to become some red-eyed, sharp-toothed thing that devoured the families of other children? The first time she had heard one of those stories, she had been unable to sleep for most of the night. Every creak of the old house had sounded like the soft footsteps of some dark thing, every whisper of wind at the window seeming to call her name, while the moonlight made even the smallest of shadows elongate across the floor, stretching out and reaching for her.

Rumia’s hand was clasped tightly to Kohta’s, and for once neither of them had a joke.

They moved forward as quietly as they could, taking care not to disturb the forest debris beneath their feet. In this they were doing…poorly. It felt like something crunched with every footstep, and by the time they had gone out of side of the forest’s edge Rumia was convinced that every animal and youkai for kilometers had been alerted.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

“Maybe-” she started to say.

Kohta flinched. “Ah! Gods, you scared the crap out of me!”

“Sorry. But maybe we’d better go back.”

Kohta stared at her like she had grown two heads. “And let Keine get eaten?”

“No! But we don’t know where she is. We can’t help her if we get eaten too!”

Kohta sneered at her in disgust. “No. I’m not abandoning her. Go back if you’re too scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Rumia said stubbornly. “I just don’t, you know, I just don’t think-”

“Shhh!” Kohta clamped a hand over her mouth. “Look!”

There was a light up ahead, bobbing through the trees. The two children looked at each other. Rumia gulped. If there was one universal truth in all the stories they had heard, it was that mysterious lights floating through creepy old forests at night were bad news!

The two crouched behind a tree and peeked out. The light hadn’t been their imagination. It was slowly moving through the woods about twenty meters from where they were. What was more, there seemed to a dark, shadowy figure following it. Rumia couldn’t make out their features, but it didn’t seem very tall.

“Is that a ghost?” Rumia whispered.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Kohta whispered back.

Despite the severity of their situation, the stupidity of that comment made Rumia just stop worrying about the light and stare at her friend in shock. “Kohta, that might be the dumbest thing I have ever heard you-”

“Keeeeeiiiiiiinnnnnneeeeee!” the dark figure suddenly called out, its warbling voice echoing through the night.

Rumia and Kohta both ducked out of sight.

“Kaaaaaaannnnnnnnaaaaaaaaa!” the voice called. “Eeeeeiiiiiiiiikoooooo!”

Rumia was shaking all over. It was a ghost, a dark phantom mournfully crying out the names of their probably dead friends, doomed to forever wail the names of the deceased like an eternal eulogy for the-

“Oh,” Kohta said. “It’s him! Mr. Joshua!”

Rumia slowly breathed out. He was right. “Great. I thought we were in a different part of the forest than him.”

“I guess not. Let’s go before he sees us.”

Kohta started to leave, but Rumia tugged sharply on his hand. “Wait,” she said. “Maybe we’d better go to him.”

“No way!”

“But-”

Kohta wrenched his hand from hers. “Look, if you’re too scared, then you go talk to him! He’ll probably just have to take you back, and he’ll just stop them from searching! Keine and the others could die while he’s doing that! We came out here to help find them, not make the rescue take longer!”

Rumia winced. That was a very good point. Sighing, Rumia just nodded and got up to follow.

The pair stealthily moved away from the other search searcher. It felt like it took forever, but eventually the light disappeared, as did the sound of Mr. Joshua’s voice. The only sound was that of their footsteps crushing leaves and sticks.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

When she was absolutely certain that they were alone, Rumia said, “There’s no such thing as ghosts? Really?”

“Well, I’ve never seen one,” Kohta said, somewhat defensively.

“Wow,” Rumia said. “Wow.”

“Look, everyone knows that when you die, your soul gets taken across the River Suzune by the Shinigami! That’s just the rules! You don’t get to stick around haunting your old house and-”

“Shhh!” Now it was Rumia’s turn to slap a hand over her friend’s mouth.

Kohta shut up, though he was obviously bursting with questions.

Rumia pointed a finger. When Kohta saw what she did, he made a low whimpering sound.

There was a clearing up ahead, a circle clear of trees and bathed in moonlight. There wasn’t much in it other than patches of wild grass and some small stones. However, sitting directly in the center was a…something, something that Rumia could only see the basic shape of. It was large, hulking, and had a pair of great elk antlers protruding from the top.

Rumia shied back. It was one of the great monsters of the forest, it had to be! How many stories of had she grown up hearing of the dark spirits that wandered these woods, of their bloodthirsty dispositions and their taste for the flesh of children?

She tugged on Kohta’s hand and tilted her head back the way they came. Maybe if they crept away as slowly and quietly as they could, they could get away without attracting its attention.

“Wait,” Kohta whispered, his eyes somehow narrowing even further as he studied the towering silhouette.

Rumia gawked at him in disbelief. Wait? Why should they wait? They needed to get away from that thing right the hell now!

However, Kohta didn’t seem to share her rational fear of whatever the thing in the clearing was. “I don’t think it’s alive,” he whispered again.

Rumia quite frankly didn’t care. Lots of things weren’t alive. That didn’t make them any less likely to kill the two of them!

However, Kohta was not to be deterred. He began to slowly creep around the clearing, keeping his eye on the thing. And since she couldn’t pull him away without making a racket, Rumia was forced to go with him.

The silhouette didn’t move as they circled around it. Rumia bit her lower lip to keep from whimpering in fear as she watched its horned head, just waiting for it to suddenly turn toward them.

It didn’t.

“I think-” Kohta started to say, right before Rumia slapped a hand over his mouth. She gawked at him for being so stupid as to talk with that thing so close.

Kohta rolled his eyes. He pulled Rumia’s hand off and inclined his head toward the silhouette.

Rumia looked again. Come to think of it, it didn’t look like any kind of creature. Instead, it seemed kind of rough and misshapen. However, it did have a definite shape, one with a high and wide back and-

“It’s a chair,” Kohta sniggered. “That’s all it is. A chair.”

Rumia shot him a dirty look, but he was right. It was a chair, a great big chair made of stone and covered with moss, sticks, and even a few mushrooms.

“A chair. You were scared of a chair!”

Rumia flicked him in the ear. “That still doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous and evil! It’s probably like some kind of cursed throne!”

Kohta shrugged. “Well, okay, but it’s not doing anything.”

Rumia ignored him. She wanted to see what the horns were all about.

She continued to circle around the clearing, bringing the front of the chair into view. It was still hard to make out the details, but her eyes had adjusted pretty well to the darkness, and there was plenty of moonlight to see by. Just a little further, just a little further…

Then Kohta inhaled sharply. Rumia swallowed.

There, seated in the chair, was an amalgamation of bones, seemingly collected from a dozen different creatures. Big bear bones, slender bird bones, and even Human bones, all carefully pieced together in a massive humanoid shape swathed in ragged clothes that swirled in the night breeze.

And seated on the top of its shoulders was a grinning bear’s skull affixed with a pair of elk antlers.

“What the hell?” Rumia said.

“I…” Kohta took a step backward.

Rumia shot him a look. “Still think it’s not scary?”

“I…” Kohta’s face had gone pale. “Maybe we’d better, you know, leave it alone.”

Then the horned bear skull turned to fix its empty eye sockets right at them.

Rumia gasped and Kohta made a sound like he had gotten kicked in the gut. The two spun around and ran from the clearing as fast as their feet would take them.

…

“Eeeeeiiiiikoooooo!” Joshua called.

There was no response. He had been tramping through the forest for the better part of an hour now, and still had found nothing. No response, no tracks, no any sign of the kids or the monster that had taken them.

He was starting to get frantic. The youkai had flown through the air during their retreat. What if they simply had dropped down into the forest right at their lair? If so, then there was probably no trail to be found. He was just going to wander around aimlessly until something ended up picking him off as well.

Pushing those dark thoughts from his mind, Joshua muttered a short, terrified prayer under his breath. Those had been coming with greater regularity the longer his search went on, and they were becoming increasingly desperate.

Then something cracked under his feet.

Joshua paused, and then stepped back. He knelt down.

It was another pile of bones, those of some kind of big cat. From the look of things it had been dead and picked clean of meat for weeks, and now all sorts of things were growing all over its ribs and vertebrae.

Joshua closed his eyes. Actually, he hadn’t found nothing. He had been finding plenty of bones. No Human bones yet, thank God, but that might have already changed.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the ravaged and defiled remains of the children, their flesh and meat ripped from their bones and gobbled down, their bloody skeletons left for the scavengers and the remains of their clothing left to rot, until exposure to the elements erased all trace of their existence, leaving no evidence that their had ever been a Haruko, a Kana, a Hayate, an Eiko, or a Keine.

It was a horrific fate, and it happened all the time. There were probably bones from a few hundred children scattered all over the forest.

Joshua refused to let it happen to his.

He rose up and set off again. “Haaaaaaruuuuuuuuukooooooooo!” he called. “Can you hear-”

Something seized him by the back of his collar. Before he could react, he was swung around and slammed backfirst into a nearby tree trunk, with a forearm thrust across his windpipe.

Gasping like a fish, Joshua looked up to see two blazing red eyes in a coldly beautiful face, one framed by locks of shimmering silver hair with bared teeth.

“Quiet, you idiot!” Mokou hissed. “Do you want to get yourself eaten? Because this is how you get yourself eaten!”

…

“Stop,” Kohta panted. “Stop. It’s not chasing us.”

Rumia might have argued the point, but to tell the truth she was willing to take any excuse to stop running. She was young and active, but hadn’t had to run that fast for that long before. Even footraces back home had only lasted a few seconds.

The two children collapsed in the shelter of a gnarled tree as they tried to catch their breath. Despite being completely out of breath and nursing aching legs, Rumia still made a point of checking to see if Kohta was correct.

Sure enough, there was no sign of a bony amalgamation pursuing them, though honestly it was so dark that simply not being visible didn’t count for much.

“What was that?” Kohta said.

“How the hell should I know?” Rumia said. “Seems like no matter how many stories we hear about this place, someone always has a new one.”

“Well, I guess now there’s one more.”

“I guess.” Then, despite the direness of their situation, Rumia couldn’t resist sneering at him. “So, still don’t believe in ghosts?”

Kohta sighed. “Oh, shut up, Rumia.”

“Seriously, that is easily the dumbest thing I have ever heard you say.”

“I said, shut up, Rumia!”

Rumia did so, though she didn’t stop smirking.

After a while Kohta said, “Hey. Do you hear that?”

Rumia did, actually. In fact she had been about to ask Kohta the same question.

There was a low buzzing sound, like hundreds of insects beating their wings, barely perceptible over the sound of their own breathing, but now that it had been pointed out it was clearly not her imagination.

“Yeah.” Rumia’s face twisted up in confusion. “What the hell is that?”

Kohta shrugged.

Now there was a second sound, a deep, bass pulsing, like a sluggish heartbeat.

Something rustled the leaves nearby, beyond a tall tree. The two children tiptoed toward the tree. As they did, the buzzing grew shriller and shriller, until Rumia could feel it in her teeth. As for the thumping pulse, that only grew deeper and deeper, until Rumia could feel it in her gut.

They pressed their backs to the tree and peeked out around it.

Beyond the tree was a short but steep incline into a leaf-covered depression. And standing in those leaves with its back to them was a…a thing.

It was humanoid, with two legs to stand upon, a torso were a torso ought to be, two arms dangling from its shoulders, and an oval-shaped head on those shoulders, but that was where the similarities ended. Its was just so horribly long and thin, with sticklike legs taller than either one of the children were, an emaciated body twice the length of a normal Human man at less than half the thickness, and arms that hung down to its knees. Its head was completely hairless, with beams of moonlight shining off of its pale dome. It wore a form-fitting outfit of black, and its flesh was as white as bleached bones.

The pulsing grew louder, or maybe that was just Rumia’s heartbeat. There was no question about it now, no “maybe it’s evil and maybe it’s just a pile of rocks and bones.” This was an actual youkai monster, one of the evil wanderers of the Youkai Forest.

The slender creature didn’t seem to have noticed them. It was calmly loping forward, taking long and slow strides, its footsteps barely disturbing the leaves. Rumia looked over to Kohta and tilted her head in the opposite direction. Kohta nodded.

Then the creature paused, and everything fell silent. The buzzing stop, as did the pulse.

Rumia and Kohta went stiff.

The creature raised its head, as if sniffing the air. It reached up with one disturbingly long arm to touch the branches up above.

Then the buzzing returned, and Rumia swore she heard voices in it. The pounding returned as well, staring off slow but building to a thundering percussion, as the slender creature slowly turned around to look over its shoulder directly at them.

It had no face. From its pointed chin to the round dome of its head was nothing but a blank expanse of skin.

Oh, screw this!

With nothing left to gain from hiding, Rumia and Kohta again spun around and fled.

…

“Mokou, wait!” Joshua said, holding up a hand. “Just calm down, okay?”

“Calm down? You want me to calm down?” Mokou shook her head in disgust. “Damn it, Josh! The hell are you even thinking? Walking about in the open like this, hollering away like a crazy person, it’s a miracle that every youkai in a hundred kilometers hasn’t zeroed in on you! Hell, maybe they have! Maybe you’re just lucky I got to you first!”

Joshua had to admit that she had a point. Certainly his way of searching hadn’t exactly been wise. But damn it, what was he supposed to do?

“I was just-”

“I know! You wanted to go save the kids! I heard the whole thing. But by the gods, Josh! How the hell are you supposed to help anyone if you get eaten before you even find them? Or for that matter, even if they do hear you hollering, how are they supposed to answer? They got taken by spiders! Spiders always at the very least gag their prey, and you’ll just let those crawly fucks know you’re coming!”

To this, Joshua had no answer.

“And if your God decides to blow all of your accumulated good will in getting you there unnoticed and undevoured, the hell where you planning to do then? Fight them? Sneak the kids out without any of them noticing? They’re spiders! They probably got them all webbed up, and you don’t even know how to fight to begin with!”

Joshua slowly breathed out. “Yes, I do.”

“What?”

“I do know how to fight. I’ve done it before. A lot, actually.”

Mokou stared at him. “Oh, yeah? You mean back where you came from? In the Outside World?”

“Yes,” Joshua admitted.

“Well, that’s great and all, but that won’t help you here! The rules of fighting are totally different, and you don’t have any of your fancy Outside World weapons to help you!”

“I know how to use danmaku,” Joshua said. He pointed a finger at a nearby bush, and a spray of glowing blue orbs shot out to pulverize its leaves. “I can shoot bullets just fine.”

“Well, goody golly-licious for you,” Mokou said as she sarcastically clapped her hands. “So do they! And they’ve been using it a long longer than you, and definitely more regularly! Have you ever even gotten into a danmaku battle before? Ever had to shoot your bullets at someone outside of fun or practice?”

Joshua bowed his head. “No.”

“Well, I guarantee that they have! Probably pretty regularly at that! You’ll be lucky if you even managed to nick one of them before they riddle you full of holes! And then they’ll eat you!”

“I brought this though,” Joshua said as he slid the anti-youkai knife from its sheathe. He held it up so Mokou could see the runes on its handle. “This will-”

Mokou’s hand suddenly came up, smacking the bottom of the knife. Taken by surprise, Joshua’s hand reflexively popped open and the knife sailed up and away.

Mokou snatched it out of the air. “You see how easily I did that?” she said, pointing the blade at the dumbstruck man. “You are completely out of your depth here. So go home, Joshua. Go home and let me handle this.”

As flustered as he was, and as embarrassed as he was, Joshua still managed to keep his shaking legs planted on the ground beneath him. “No,” he said.

“No?”

“No. I’m not going back.” Joshua said. “Don’t you understand? I was the ones watching those kids. They got taken under my watch! I can’t just stand aside and do nothing!”

Mokou’s face twisted up in annoyance. “Oh, spare me from kind-hearted fools!” she groaned as she slapped a hand across her own face. “Josh, I have exactly zero time for your guilty conscience, so back off and leave this to the professionals! Specifically, me!”

Joshua was a fair bit shorter than Mokou and thus had to incline his head to look her in the face. As such, he was in the perfect position to take notice of something moving in the branches behind her. Something with gleaming orange eyes. “Mokou…” he said.

“Because if any of those kids got hurt because you held me up, then I swear-”

“Mokou, watch out!”

The shadow had leapt from its branch right at Mokou’s back. Joshua reached up to grab Mokou by the arm in hopes of pulling her out of the way.

Several things then happened, either at the same time or in such quick succession that it might as well have been at the same time.

First, the moment that Joshua’s hands closed around Mokou’s arm, it abruptly swung to the side, lifting him right off his feet and hurling him to the ground.

The second was the sound of something whistling through the air right over his head, something fast enough for him to feel the wind of its passing.

The third was a feminine voice grunting in pain and surprise.

Joshua rolled onto her back and sat up. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting to see, but what he found waiting for him surely wasn’t it.

Mokou was standing balanced on one leg, the other held straight out, her foot shoved up against the throat of another woman. The woman was of medium height and slender in build, with grey-ish blue skin, softly glowing orange eyes, and bright orange hair tied into a pair of pigtails. She was wearing a sleeveless black-and-blue striped blouse, a tattered purple skirt, and black-and-orange stripped leggings. On her hand she wore a sort of cap that had a pair of floppy horns made of felt.

Mokou had her pinned up against a tree, and she was clawing at the foot pressing at her larynx.

“Juniper Spice,” Mokou said. “Well, as I live and breathe.”

Joshua gawked at her. “Wait, you know this person?”

“We’ve met,” Mokou said. “We’re not friends.”

The youkai woman identified as Juniper choked and coughed. “I…I didn’t know…it was you,” she said. “I didn’t!”

“Yeah, well, tough.” Her foot still keeping Juniper trapped, Mokou flicked Joshua’s knife up between her fingers.

A second later Joshua realized what she intended. “No! Mokou, wait!”

It was too late. Mokou hurled the knife. It sailed straight and true to embed itself right in Juniper’s forehead, neatly between her eyes.

Juniper’s whole body jerked and she let out a small squeak. Then, as bright red blood ran down her nose, her whole body started to convulse.

As Joshua stared in horror, Mokou lowered her foot. Juniper stayed where she was, shaking and writhing as black steam rose up from where the knife was stuck. Foamy spittle bubbled up from her mouth to drip down her chin.

Then she slumped lifelessly, and her body began to dissolve.

Orangish vapor billowed into the air to disappear, and when it had all dissipated, nothing was left of Juniper Spice, no evidence of what had happened to her save for the knife itself, which was still partially embedded in the trunk of the tree.

“You killed her,” Joshua said in disbelief.

Mokou calmly grabbed the knife’s handle and yanked it out. “Uh, yeah? She was trying to kill us. Hell, she probably had been stalking you for some time. If I hadn’t come along she would’ve gotten you.”

“But…”

“Relax, Josh. She’s a youkai. Getting smoked like that is part of their everyday life. Give it a few minutes, and she’ll come right back with a bad mood and a healthy amount of respect.”

“You…Wait, are you sure?”

Sighing, Mokou tossed the knife into the dirt in front of Joshua. “Yes, Josh. I’m sure. I’ve killed her before. For fuck’s sake, you’ve been in Gensokyo how long? This is basic youkai stuff.”

“Oh.” Despite having lived in Gensokyo for many years, there were still some aspects of it that he had trouble wrapping his head around. He picked up the knife and stood up.

Mokou looked around and sighed. “You’re really set on saving the kids, aren’t you?”

Joshua slid the knife back into its sheath. Then he looked up into Mokou’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

“Fuck,” Mokou muttered. “If I send you back you’ll just get snapped up. Gods only know how you made it this far.” She shook her head and sighed. “Fine, fine. Tag along if you must, but stay out of my way, don’t slow me down, don’t do anything stupid, and as much as I like you, if it comes down to either saving you or saving the kids, I’ll be sure to say something nice at your funeral. Got it?”

Harsh, but completely fair. “I understand.”

“Fine.” Mokou turned and headed off. “Keep up, then. Rumia and Kohta went off on their own to search as well, so we have to find them too.”

Joshua stumbled. “Wait, they did what?”

“You heard me! Now shut up and keep up!”

…

“Okay,” Kohta panted as he leaned up against a tree. “I think…I think we lost him.”

The effort of trying to catch her breath had bent Rumia down over her knees. “You think?” she got out between gasps.

“Well…he hasn’t…caught us…has he?”

“Maybe…maybe he’s…in the trees…and…” Something tickled Rumia’s ear. “Stop touching me!”

“I’m not.”

“Then…what was…”

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The two children froze.

Crunch. Crunch. Rip. Snap.

“Is that it?” Rumia whispered. “Is it coming?”

“I don’t…it doesn’t really sound like footsteps.” Kohta tried to straighten up, but then suddenly jerked back. “Hey!”

“Huh?”

“I’m stuck! Something’s sticking to me!”

Something tickled Rumia’s ear again. She slapped it away.

Her hand was suddenly filled with several silky, sticky strands.

“Uh…” She pulled it away from her head. In her hand was something thinner than paper and glistening white.

She then slowly looked up to where Kohta was still trying to free himself from the trunk of the tree. The tree was covered with the stuff, like a paper sheathe.

“Kohta, stop,” Rumia whispered.

“What?”

“Look…up.”

Catching her tone, Kohta swallowed and obeyed.

The entire forest around them was draped with what looked like a silk net. It covered the tree trunks, it was laid across the tree branches, it was even laid across the forest floor in places. Here and there things that looked like giant moth cocoons hung from the branches. One or two of them were twitching. Most of them were not.

Rumia felt the blood drain from her face. Those were no cocoons.

“Webs,” Kohta said hoarsely. “Spiderwebs.”

Crunch. Munch. Slurp.

The two children exchanged one brief look. Then Rumia hastily ripped the web from her fingers and seized Kohta’s arm with both hands and yanked with all her might, ripping him free from the trunk.

“We need to-” Kohta started to say.

Crunch.

Something had broken under Rumia’s feet. The two of them looked down.

A half-buried Human skull grinned up at them, webs draped over it like a burial shroud. Rumia’s foot had landed right onto its right eye socket, caving it in.

“Ah!” Rumia was about to run again, but then Kohta’s hands clamped down on her bicep.

“No!” he hissed. “Get a grip! You start running and screaming again, and the spiders will hear us!”

Every instinct in Rumia was screaming for her to completely disregard Kohta’s point and run as fast as she could while screaming as loud as possible.

But she had done that twice already. And each time it had just sent her into an even scarier situation. So she bit back on the screams she felt rising and slowly removed her foot from within the skull.

Then they turned in the direction of the sounds. Up ahead was a ring of web-covered trees, and within seemed to be a small clearing.

The sounds were coming from the clearing, and between the web-covered trees she could see movement.

Rumia and Kohta exchanged a glance. Then, gripping tightly to each other’s hands, they crept toward the clearing, careful to avoid the webbing on the ground and anything that might be another pile of remains.

The clearing was playing host to a ghastly scene. The whole place was draped with webs, and weirdly enough there was furniture scattered about. Rumia saw a bookshelf filled with what looked like odd trinkets and weird bones; a hat stand holding a top hat, a bonnet, a straw hat, and a weird thing that looked like a stripy inverted funnel; a grandfather clock; a few easy chairs; a cabinet holding chipped tea cups; and four beds. Strapped to four of the trees along the perimeter was a child, each of their bodies partially wrapped up like decaying mummies. Rumia’s heart skipped a beat. Keine was among them, her face pale and her body limp. Rumia couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.

Fastened to another tree was Kana, who for once was silent. And next to her was Haruko, and next to Haruko was Hayate.

Unlike the others, Haruko was wide awake and staring. Her mouth was gagged with webs to keep her from screaming, but judging by the look in her eyes she would if she could. She was staring at what was happening in the center of the clearing.

There, the four spider-youkai that had attacked the Children’s Home were gathered. Now that Rumia saw them up close, they seemed even more monstrous than they had when viewed at a distance in the bright sunlight. They seemed to be the kin of that slender thing in the woods, with limbs that were twisted, elongated, and malformed, with twice as many joints than they ought to have. Their necks were longer than they had any right to be, and their grey hair almost looked like spiderwebs themselves. Two of them were wearing torn and filthy dresses, one that once had been white with blue stripes and the other a color that might have been orange once. Another had on a long, red coat over a shredded black shirt and a black skirt. The one male had on the remains of what had once been tailored black slacks, a black vest hanging unbuttoned over a filthy white shirt, and a grey tie hanging loosely around his neck like a noose.

All four of them were paying little attention to their ensnared captives. They were crouching on their haunches around a dinner table, tearing at something with their hands and mouths. Rumia couldn’t make out what it was, but she caught glimpses of something red. One of the spider-youkai raised its head. Blood was running down its gaunt face, and there was something white and stringy hanging from its mouth. It gulped it down and ducked its head back down again.

Then a human arm flopped out of the cluster. It was wearing a black sleeve, and a pale hand hung limply at its end. Blood ran down the fingers to drip to the ground.

Rumia’s hand went to her mouth. By process of elimination there really was only one person that could be.

Eiko.

“Oh my gods,” Kohta whispered, so low that even Rumia barely heard him. “Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods.”

As for Rumia, she didn’t have the stomach even for whispered curses. Sour nausea twisted up her gut, and she was able to keep from retching by constantly reminding herself that the spiders would hear the noise and eat them as well.

The two of them had never liked Eiko. She had been whiny and nosy and pretty mean most of the time, always doing whatever Haruko had told her to do, always butting into their business and helping push around the smaller kids.

But sweet spirits, nobody had ever, even in their darkest, most private fantasies, wished something like that upon her!

If there was one blessing that could be gleaned by the whole terrible scene, it was that the four spider-youkai were so absorbed with feasting on poor Eiko’s remains that they were paying no attention to either their remaining captives or the two invaders that had trespassed on their nest.

It was time.

Rumia knelt down to spit out the wad of saliva her nausea had produced and swallowed back as much of the sick feeling as she could. Then she tugged on Kohta’s sleeve and angled her head toward where the other kids were being held.

Kohta’s eyes went wide and he emphatically shook his head.

Baring her teeth, Rumia pointed to where Keine was hanging. Then she pointed at the gruesome feast.

Kohta’s face twisted up as the impulse to flee joined forces with the sheer terror surging through him and waged war on his desire to save his friends. In the end the latter won out, and he let out a small sigh through his nostrils and nodded.

The two of them crept around the clearing, careful not to step on anything too loud, especially careful not to keep glancing over at what the spiders were doing, but it was difficult.

Fortunately, the other kids weren’t fully cocooned like the other bodies they had seen. They only had a couple silk restraints splattered onto their wrists and calves, pinning them to the tree trunks. Webs were also smeared over their mouths as gags, though the spiders had left their eyes free, probably to make them watch.

The first that they reached was Hayate, unfortunately. Rumia and Kohta produced the knives they had brought along and went to work. The webs were strong enough to keep her from tearing away on her own strength, but they parted like grass beneath the steel blades. The enchantments were working.

Hayate seemed to have passed out, but after they managed to free one leg and one hand she began to stir. She didn’t look at all well though. Even with the tremendous scare of what she had been through, her skin felt cold and clammy. Even in the pale moonlight Rumia could see dark veins on her arms and around her neck.

As they worked to bring her down, Rumia glanced at the other kids. Haruko, the only one still awake, had noticed them. She was staring with wide eyes, her hands twitching beneath the webs. She glanced quickly at what the spiders were doing to her friend and then back at them, silently begging them to hurry.

As Rumia and Kohta lowered Hayate to the ground, she started to come around. Rumia started to cut away the gag, but then Kohta covered her hand and shook his head. For a moment Rumia was confused, but then she understood. Hayate was going to be confused and scared when she woke up, and if she screamed, that was it for all of them.

Sure enough, Hayate opened her eyes moments later. She blinked groggily and squinted up at them. She frowned in bewilderment, as if she had no memory of where she was or why she was there.

But then enough pieces apparently pieced themselves together in her mind and her eyes suddenly bulged out.

“Shhh!” Rumia slapped a hand over Hayate’s gagged mouth to prevent any sound from escaping. “Quiet!” she hissed into the terrified girl’s ear. “We’re here to save you, but you have to be quiet!”

Hayate was trembling violently, but she managed a slight nod.

Hoping that she would keep her word, Rumia and Kohta then turned their attention to the next bound captive, which thankfully was Keine.

Keine also had weird veiny blotches on her skin, but she started stirring more quickly when Rumia and Kohta touched her. They hastily cut the sticky strands away and brought her down to the ground.

“Keine!” Kohta whispered. “Can you hear me?”

Keine sleepily blinked her eyes. She moaned beneath her gag.

“Shhh!” Kohta put his face right in front of hers so that she would be able to read his lips. Don’t say anything. Youkai are near. Stay still and quiet.

Keine blinked. Then she stiffened as the memories caught up with her. She glanced at him and Rumia and nodded as well. However, she did sit up and throw her arms around the two of them, and they did the same. Though she was still tense with fear and revulsion, Rumia finally felt a small bit of hope. They had gotten Keine back. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but they at least had her.

Keine, at least, could be trusted. She angled her head to one side and let her friends cut away her gag. Once it was out of the way she started clawing at her mouth and silently gagged as she tried to get rid of any remaining strands. One particularly large wad made her shiver with disgust.

Rumia caught sight of Hayate staring at them. Once she had Rumia’s eye, the other girl pointed at the wad of silk covering her mouth. Rumia shook her head. Hayate blinked, then she scowled and let out an angry snort.

Two down, two to go. And the next was the one that they wanted to save the least. Still, there were some things that even blood feuds were suspended for.

Haruko had been watching the whole time. As they approached, the only two fingers she had free started to rapidly beat against the tree trunk.

“Stop it!” Rumia hissed. “Do you want them to-”

“Oi!”

One of the spiders suddenly turned toward Haruko, his neck curving around like a snake. Rumi and Kohta ducked out of sight.

“Stop makin’ dat noise!” the spider growled, his voice thick and gummy. “If yer so impatient, den it’ll be yer turn once we’re done wit’ yer itty-bitty friend ‘ere!”

The other spiders laughed, and they all went back to their meal.

Rumia forced herself to release the breath she had been holding. Her heart was still pounding away like a war drum though.

Baring her teeth, she set back to work, cutting away at Haruko’s left hand and leg while Kohta worked on her right side.

Once she was free, Haruko had no problem with being led behind the tree and out of sight. She immediately threw both arms around Kohta’s shoulders and squeezed him tight while she hyperventilated.

Rumia’s right eye twitched, but she did nothing.

Kohta winced but tolerated it, though Rumia suspected that was more due to no wanting to risk attracting attention than respecting Haruko’s feelings.

“Okay, okay,” Kohta muttered with an awkward pat on the bat. “Um, you gotta let go. Seriously. I need to go help Kana. Let go, please.”

Rumia rolled her eyes. Then she saw that Hayate was up on her knees and was slowly crawling toward Haruko, her hands outstretched and tears pouring from her eyes.

That should work. Rumia took her by the elbow and helped her come in closer. Then she jostled Haruko’s shoulder to get her attention. Once Haruko saw that Hayate was near, she immediately abandoned Kohta to seize her remaining friend in another squeezing embrace, and unlike Kohta, Hayate was more than happy to reciprocate.

Kohta shook his head and sighed. Then he caught the look Rumia was shooting him.

What? he mouthed.

Rolling her eyes, Rumia just went over to where Kana was hanging.

The weird girl looked like she was the worst off. The dark veins were more pronounced on her skin, and she was sweating profusely. What was more, she didn’t stir at all when Rumia and Kohta started working to free her.

Rumia swallowed. She prayed to whatever meager gods that would hear her that Kana was still alive and kept cutting.

The girl barely seemed to weigh a thing as they took her to the others and laid her down. Keine, who seemed to have shaken off whatever the spiders had done to her quicker than the still tearfully embracing Haruko and Hayate, knelt down at Kana’s side. She leaned over to place her ear against Kana’s chest while holding a finger under her nose. Rumia held her breath as she waited for the diagnosis.

Keine sat back and nodded. She held up a hand with her index finger and her thumb only a few centimeters apart. Rumia and Kohta understood. Kana was breathing, but only just. They needed to get her back as quickly as possible.

Kohta crouched down and lifted Kana onto his back. He nodded to the others and tilted his head back the way he and Rumia had come. They started to creep away, but then Hayate seized Rumia by the arm. She jabbed a finger at the web still covering her mouth.

Oh, fine. Rumia pulled out her knife and went to work cutting it away. Like the others, Hayate gagged as she spat out all the gunk in her mouth.

“All right,” Rumia whispered. “Now let’s go!”

Hayate looked at her like she had lost her mind. “No!” she whispered back. “What about Eiko? We can’t leave Eiko!”

Rumia felt like she had been kicked in the gut. Oh gods, Hayate had passed out before Eiko had been eaten. She didn’t know!

Seeing the way everyone was looking at her, Hayate just stared back in confusion. “What? Why are you guys-”

“Welp, dis one’s ‘bout done,” one of the spiders said suddenly. “Onta da second course!”

“All right, all right, keep yer pants on. Which one?”

“Betta make it da ‘ickle blonde bit. She dun’t look like she got much left in ‘er, so we’d bedda get ‘er on da table while she’s still fresh.”

Oh shit.

“Go, go, go!” Kohta whispered.

The hurried away, with Haruko practically dragging the still-confused Hayate along.

“Hey, da fook?” a spider called out. “Where’d da ‘ickle morsels go?”

“Are ya fookin’ serious? Dey was jus’ dere!”

“Well, dey ain’t now!”

“Damn it all. Spread out and search! Dey couldn’t ‘ave gone far!”

The horrible sound of scrabbling filled the air. The children increased their gait.

Then a horribly long arm snaked out of the trees in front of them. It ended in a slender hand with fingers that looked as long as Rumia’s forearms, each topped by a pointed nail caked with dirt and drying blood.

The hand planted itself on the ground, the elbow bending at an unnatural angle. Another such arm came into view, the hand grabbing onto a tree trunk.

A gaunt face followed, one with hollow cheeks, a pointed chin, and dark hair that hung around the face like a funeral shroud. The face’s eyes were sunken and dark, each with four tiny white pupils that glimmered like candles in the dark. Dark blood still was smeared around its pale lips.

The face swung around on its elongated neck to leer at the children. “Well, well, well, what have we ‘ere?” the spider said as she ambled out of the clearing. “A wee ‘ickle rescue attempt? ‘ey, chaps! C’mere!”

The other spiders ambled their way toward her, one loping his way on the ground while the other two crawled across the trees. “You ‘ave got ta’ be fookin’ kiddin’ me,” growled the male spider.

“Nah, see? Dey missed deir friends so much dat dey come ‘ere ta’ try ta’ save ‘em! Ain’t dey precious?”

“Precious ‘ickle dumplin’s,” growled another. “So kind dey are. Now we ‘ave enough for breakfast an’ dinner tummarah!”

Rumia couldn’t move. Fear had frozen her feet in place. She couldn’t even blink. All she could do was stand stiff and still and stare as the four malformed monsters crawled ever closer.

This is it, she found herself thinking. This is how I die. Ripped apart like my family. And I still couldn’t save anyone. What a stupid way to go.

Then some blue and glowing shot through the air to splash against the lead spider’s cheek.

The one that had been hit flinched back. She held a claw to the point of impact. “Da fook was…”

Then everyone, spider and child alike, turned to stare at the culprit.

Haruko was standing with one hand outstretched, index and middle fingers pointing out, while she held onto her wrist with the other hand. Every centimeter of her was shaking with fear, but it was clear that she had been the one responsible.

“You can shoot bullets?” Kohta said in disbelief.

Haruko glanced at him and nodded. Then she inhaled sharply and fired another blue projectile.

This one glanced off the spider’s shoulder. This time, she looked more annoyed than anything. “Really?” she growled. “Fookin’ danmaku. Sorry, chitlins. But youz is playin’ a grown-up’s game.” She lifted a hand, which then began glowing purple. “But if it’s a danmaku battle yah be wantin’, den Auntie Edna is more than ‘appy to play!”

Before Edna could fire off her first round, Kohta let go of one of Kana’s legs to thrust his hand into his pocket. When he drew it back out, it was holding onto a small piece of paper.

“Uh, hit the deck!” he screamed as he tossed the paper forward. Then he threw both himself and Kana to the ground and covered his eyes. Everyone else did the same. Even the spiders flinched back in anticipation of the spellcard attack.

Nothing happened.

Rumia looked up. The spellcard was lying on the ground, obviously not activated. The spiders, who had all retreated back and covered their faces, were now lowering their arms and glancing at one another.

“Huh,” the male said. Then the four of them leered back down at the children. “Well den.”

“You idiot!” Hayate screamed. “You have to say the spellcard’s name!”

“Huh? Oh, right!” Kohta snatched the card back up and thrust it forward again as the spiders resumed their advance. “Phoenix Sign: Magnificent Inferno!”

And then the forest erupted with light.

…

I have a new policy. If I get an idea that would certainly have upset and disturbed kid me, I do it.

Until next time, everyone.

#the touhou project #touhou #imperfect metamorphosis #fanfic #rumia #mokou #Fujiwara no Mokou

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mdelpin · 5 years ago

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Gratsu Bingo 2019, Gratsu Week 2019 Prompt: Flying AO3 | FF.Net

Anyone Who Had A Heart

Summary: Natsu and Gray were careful, they had to be. They were well aware that Don't ask, don't tell didn't only apply to servicemen at Loring Air Force Base. One wrong move could destroy not only them but their loved ones. But they were in love, and sometimes love can make us careless.

Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters Belong to Hiro Mashima

Natsu had always loved flying. It had started at an early age when his father had taken him to a small local airport to watch the small planes take off and land. They'd sit on the hood of his father's old truck on Sundays while his mother prepared dinner. His father would sit him on his lap, and they'd laugh as they felt the wind push against their bodies when the planes accelerated past them on the runway, as they prepared to take off and soar in the air.

His father would walk him through what the pilots where doing and even though Natsu couldn't really understand the words at first, he still loved listening to the joy in his father's voice as he would patiently explain the same thing every week.

His father was a fighter pilot at the local Air Force Base. He flew planes which were sleeker and faster than anything that was housed in the small hangar of the airport, but he could always find something to love about any type of plane.

It wasn't uncommon to see Natsu running around the base, arms stretched out in makeshift wings as he made sputtering noises like an engine. His father would always beam at him and urge him to go faster and faster.

They had to move often, his father receiving Permanent Change of Station to other bases as he was promoted up the ranks, but as soon as they arrived at their new home they would seek out the local airport, and it would all begin again. It was their one normalcy in their ever-changing world.

When Natsu was six years old, his father surprised him by taking him out on a plane for the very first time. It was just a small biplane he'd rented, but Natsu was still thrilled to be inside instead of watching from the sidelines. He felt funny wearing the goggles and headset his father had insisted he put on, but he could still feel the wind threading through his hair.

It was the most exhilarating moment of his life so far, he felt a freedom he'd never experienced before. There were butterflies in his stomach, and his heart raced in his chest. He couldn't help but scream joyfully into the air, smiling as he heard his father's warm laugh coming from the seat in front of him.

When he was in the air, there was no time to think about the friends he had once again left behind, or worry about having to start a new school and making new ones. There were only clouds and wind, and basking in the warm sunlight. It was as peaceful as it was exciting, and he loved it.

When his father began to do barrel rolls, Natsu hooted in approval. He thought his father was the coolest person in the world. Natsu was filled with great happiness, and he wanted nothing more than to stay up in the sky forever.

He now knew without a doubt what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a pilot like his father, to spend his time in the clouds, leaving his worries down on the ground. After that, every year on his birthday, his father would rent a plane for a few hours and take him up.

xxx

Natsu's father knocked on his bedroom door, making him look up from the Lego model he'd been struggling with.

"Natsu, I need to talk to you, son."

His father looked pained, and Natsu had long ago learned to recognize that voice. He knew, without a doubt, they would be moving again. He'd lost track of how many times they'd moved, but at ten years of age, he could say he'd lived in all the time zones the United States had to offer.

There was something different this time though, his father had sat on his bed. Usually, when this happened, he'd just tell him where they were going and then leave him to begin packing. Something else was up.

"An opportunity has come up at a base in New England," His father declared absently, "I know you like it here, but our situation has changed, and I have to take it."

Natsu wasn't exactly sure why his father thought he liked it here, the kids were mean. They called him names just cause he had pink hair.

It was irritating, it's not like he had any control over his hair color. He would definitely not be sorry to leave this place behind. Natsu couldn't help but notice his father was paying no attention to him. By that token, where was his mom? She usually came in after the announcement to help him pack.

Natsu's father finally focused on him again, peering at him with wide eyes and shaking hands, and Natsu could feel the beginnings of fear grab hold of his fingertips and crawl itself up the rest of his body.

"Dad?"

His father didn't respond right away, seemingly lost in his own world, one that was apparently sad enough to cause tears to glisten at the corner of his eyes. Natsu could feel his insides get cold, and he began to shake with anxiety.

His father looked at him blankly before shaking his head and producing a smile that wouldn't fool anyone, let alone someone who knew him as well as Natsu did.

"Your mom," Natsu could hear the sob in his father's voice, and he rushed to his bed, jumping on his father's lap and holding on for dear life.

They held each other for a few minutes as his dad got himself under control, "Your mom is sick, and she needs better care than what she can get at this small base. "

Natsu looked up in shock. His mother was sick? But she looked fine.

"I don't understand," Natsu managed to get out wondering what kind of illness could be so severe but not show.

"She uhm, she has cancer. Moving to a bigger base might help extend her life a little," His father tried to explain.

"So if we move they can cure her?" Natsu asked eagerly, he wasn't exactly sure what cancer was, he'd only ever heard the word used in hushed voices.

His father shook his head sadly, "There is no cure, but the base we're moving to has its own hospital. She'll have access to better treatments, and they'll be able to keep her comfortable."

"So, when are we going?" Natsu asked, trying to sound like his world wasn't currently falling apart all around him.

He felt strong arms embrace him tightly, and they remained this way for a long time, long past when it got dark outside. He could hear his mother moving around in the house, but for the first time he could remember, he wasn't eager to see her. He didn't know what to do or what to say, and he was terrified he would somehow make the situation worse.

Natsu had never wanted to be up in the sky as much as he did at that moment.

A/N: This was an idea I had while I was working, I had a query that required me to look around an air force base and this story sort of popped into my head. It takes place during the early 1990’s when attitudes towards those who identified as gay were a lot worse than they are now, especially in military circles. It was originally meant to be a two-shot for Gratsu Week but when Gratsu Bingo was announced I decided to expand the story to use some of the prompts. They start up as kids but should age up to high school age in a few chapters. Will be continued in Day 4′s Prompt: Water.

#fairy tail #gratsu #gratsubingo2019 #gratsuweek2k19 #ftlgbtales #ftfanfics #natsu x gray #gray x natsu #natsu & gray & erza #angst #eventual happy ending #chapter 1 #my edits

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insanely-creative-things · 6 years ago

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Big Hero 7: The Series

www.fanfiction.net

Big Hero 7

(Long Post)

*Another peaceful day is happening in San Fransokyo. The gang so far had been successfully leading their double lives: students by day, superheroes at night. But now it was a school day, and the younger members of the group, Hiro Hamada and Cora Mizichio, were currently heading to Hiro's lab.*

Cora: So, what are we up to this time Hiro Hamada?

Hiro: *Smiling slyly* Oh, nothing much...

Cora: *Raises eyebrow*

Hiro: I just made a little something for you that I know you'll love!

Cora: What is it?

Hiro: Close your eyes first.

Cora: Really?

Hiro: The surprise will be great I promise, so please?

*After he gave her his best puppy eyes. Cora smiled and blushed as she shut her eyes. Hiro quickly grabbed a headset to place on Cora's head as lightly as he can.*

Cora: *Eyes still closed* Can I open them now?

*Hiro plugs in and starts up the headset*

Hiro: Now you can!

*Cora's eyes opened to find herself in the sea, complete with coral reefs and exotic fish swimming by her.*

Cora: Hiro...you did this?

*Hiro sat on his desk as he watched both the screen and Cora awe in wonder in her headset enthusiastically*

Hiro: Only for my favorite girlfriend.

*Cora giggles before she removes her headset and gives a quick kiss on his lips*

Cora: You're only girlfriend, but thank you.

*Hiro blushes before giggling like an idiot as Cora puts her headset back on. She emerged herself to the oceanic world Hiro made for her, connected to the marine life and wonders it has to hold. Cora giggled as she felt small fish twirl around her as another fish nibbled on her finger*

Grandville: Mr. Hamada?

*Hiro's love struck daze quickly came off as Grandville entered the room. He looked at Cora, who did not hear the Dean.*

Grandville: Miss Mizichio?

*Cora in the virtual ocean noticed something swim up to her, so she looked up and saw a shark in front of her. But what startled her the most was that the shark was speaking to her.*

Shark*Grandville's voice*: Miss Mizichio!

*Cora jumped back before realizing who's voice it was. She removes the headset as she looks at the Dean, giving an embarrassed laugh as she puts away the headset.*

Grandville: Follow please!

Hiro: Uh Professor Grandville! Cora and I were just taking a little break, cause you know, studies shows all work and no-

Grandville: Do not play me.

Hiro: Fair enough, uh so what's up?

Grandville: I would imagine being two fourteen year olds surrounded by college students presents certain...social and emotional challenges.

Hiro: Looks at Cora before looking back at the Dean* No... N-not really. but hey, I'm sure whatever you have in mind is gonna show me how wrong I am.

Cora: Ma'am, if I may. We already have friends who are college students and Hiro and I are together.

Grandville: And that's impressive for a student who has been home-schooled for a majority of her life.

*Cora's voice fell before she looked down at her feet, but Hiro was quick to hold her hand and give her a reassuring smile. Grandville smiled at the couple, knowing that this is what she had in mind for someone else. The three arrived at bio-hazard lab, reserved for the studies of cells and viruses, the lights were off at the end of the room was a person with long hair in a pony tail and wearing a lab coat.*

Grandville: Mr. Hamada, Miss Mizichio, meet Karmi.

*The person named Karmi turned around to face the three, she was wearing goggles and medical mask as she held green glowing needles in her hands. Hiro has concerns over this person while Cora was in awe over her. Karmi put away her needles in her lab coat and removed her goggles and mask, revealing a girl who is their age if not maybe a bit older as the light suddenly turned on.*

Karmi: Hiro, Cora! When Professor G asked me to connect with you two, I thought this is gonna be super great! And it is! So great! The greatest!

*Hiro took a step back away from Karmi, feeling a little uneasy over her 'enthusiasm'. Cora on the other hand, gave her best smile and shook Karmi's hand*

Hiro: Uh- hello.

Cora: It's very nice to meet you too Karmi!

Grandville: Karmi was the youngest female student ever admitted into San Fransokyo Tech.

Karmi: Until you two!

*At this Cora noticed that Karmi's smile and the way she said it was a little too...forced. But she pushed it aside, giving it the benefit of a doubt.*

Grandville: So she knows what you two are going through.

Hiro: *Looking at Cora again before looking back at the Dean and Karmi* Oh! w-we're going through something? That's news to us.

Cora: It's very nice that you thought of us ma'am.

*But they knew that they were doing alright. After all they had great friends and each other to get through anything, social or otherwise.*

Grandville: Now you both know, and you're welcome. Here's what we're going to do.

Hiro: *Gesturing to himself, Cora and the Dean* We?

*Grandville slightly pushes Hiro and Cora towards Karmi.*

Grandville: You two.

Karmi: *Sounding forced* So super!

Grandville: I want you two to 'hang' with Karmi. I think you two can learn from her socialization experience.

Hiro: Uhh, sure we can probably do Thursday morning-

Grandville: Every day! All week, keep a journal, I want a full report on Friday.

Karmi: Bye Professor G! So glad to have new friends!

*After the Dean left the three teens, there were only three emotions running through each of them: Hiro is super confused, Cora had the 'alright' look, but Karmi's chipper attitude quickly washed away once the Dean left.

Karmi: Here's the deal. Stay out of my face, stay out of my space.

Cora: Uh, okaaay...?

Hiro: What happened to 'hanging'?

Karmi: Of course you'd ask that, YOU TWO think you're both some special white blood cells, but you're both nothing but common red blood cells!

Hiro: What? W-w-what uh, What?

*Cora, who was thinking over Karmi's words, finally realized what is happening.*

Cora: Oh! I understand now. You're jealous.

*Karmi stopped in her tracks when she heard Cora innocently point out the reason for her actions. She gave a deadly glare at Cora before walking back to her studies. As of while, Fred had wandered into Hiro's lab and tried on Cora's headset, which now led to Fred running for his life over the virtual shark Cora encountered before as he ran passed the lab the teens were in as he yelled out.*

Fred: Shark attack!

Cora turns her glance slightly to the door as Fred ran by yelling about a shark attack and noticed he was wearing her headset and sees that the cord was still attached to the headset and no sooner had he ran passed the door, the cord pulls him back hard that he falls back hard on his back in front of the door. After Cora see all this, she pinches the bridge of her nose as she signs*

Cora: Oh Fred...

*After Karmi returned to her seat, Hiro and Cora looked around Karmi's lab, interested in what she's studying. As of now, Karmi was observing a virus in her microscope.*

Karmi: Observing mutated virus, Day 57.

*Hiro lightly played with the mechanical arm while Cora looked over the other viruses on the shelf, specifically over the more dangerous ones, and held her phone up to see it closely.*

Hiro: Careful Cora.

Cora: *Smiles at him* Always Hiro.

*Karmi rolled her eyes at the couple before she resumed her research at the cell*

Karmi: Looking good, 81-004.

Hiro: You ah, you talk to the virus?

Karmi: That was a private conversation, but yes. 81-004 is a dear friend. As are R69-5, L4-382, and 95-414. Who I'm still getting to know

*At the corner Cora spotted one petri dish*

Cora: Hey, is this lung fluke?

*Karmi, glad to show off her knowledge, made a smirk as she turned her chair around.*

Karmi: Yes it is, 14-013 is a lung fluke that's-

Cora: Commonly found in crab fish and causes chronic coughing and chest pain and etc right?

*Karmi's smug face was wiped clean off.*

Karmi: How do YOU know that? Are you studying viruses too?

Cora: No, Marine Biology, lung fluke is common knowledge.

Hiro: Okay... sure...

Karmi: *Turns back to Hiro* Oh you thinking talking to viruses is weird. YOU and your GIRLFRIEND, the kids who talk to a mechanical snowman, as least my dangerous microscopic organisms are actually alive.

*At this point, Cora gave a glare before she calmed down and cleared her throat.*

Cora: Yeah, deadly viruses that live to destroy and leave only rotten corpses are definitely superior from a robotic nurse programmed to help people from said diseases.

*Karmi looked at Cora, to which both are glaring venom at each other. Hiro, seeing the tension between the two girls, clears his throat.*

Hiro: Alright, no judgement. Can we just move on, I need to put something in the journal for Grandville.

Karmi: Not my problem, just make me look good because-

*Unbeknownst to them, Grandville was walking past them with an open door, which Karmi took full advantage of and gave off her sickly sweet tone of voice.*

Karmi: I want this to be a wonderful experience for you two!

*With Karmi's smile that Grandville bought, Hiro could only deadpan*

Hiro: Oh you are good.

Grandville: Karmi, take Mr. Hamada and Miss Mizichio to lunch at the dinning hall, my treat.

Karmi: *Sounding forced again* So super!

Grandville: Get aquanted you three, have fun. Mandatory fun.

Karmi: Super great idea! On it!

*Grandville soon left the room*

Karmi: I'm sorry 81-004, I know we were gonna do a DNA extraction over lunch but, you're just have to incubate a little longer.

*Karmi placed her petri dish in the machine to heat the virus*

Karmi: Let's go genius kids.

*After Karmi made way to the cafeteria to lead the couple, they gave their thoughts on the overall experience.*

Hiro: And Grandville thinks we need socialization help?

Cora: *Crosses her arms* If anyone needs 'socialization help', it her. And maybe a good butt-kicking to go along with it.

Hiro: *Looking nervously and pleadingly at Cora* Cora...

Cora; Relax Hiro, I'm not gonna do anything to her, I know better than that. But I swear if she keeps up this attitude, I can't promise that 'someone' might not be getting some much needed B-slapping.

*Soon after she said that, Cora begins to walk out of the lab after Karmi with Hiro following right behind her as he mutters while pinching the bridge of his nose trying to calm his already building stress and nerves.*

Hiro: ...This is gonna be a LONG week...

*Once the three made their way to the dinning hall, they chose a large table so all three can sit in one place. They noticed that Karmi brought her books and started working. Cora sighed before she pulled out her Bento boxes, one for Hiro and one for herself*

Cora: As promised Hiro, I made you bento.

Hiro: Sweet! Thanks babe.

*Cora blushed and smiled softly at his words. Karmi rolled her eyes and scoffed*

Karmi: Can you two not flirt right now?

*Cora pouted at her remark, but just before she could retort back, she noticed that Karmi doesn't have any food with her. Cora, while still not very happy with Karmi and her attitude towards her and Hiro, but with concern on her brow non-the-less, brought over pieces of her lunch, containing Tempura(Fried Shrimp), Kobe beef, and a sushi roll.*

Cora: Hey Karmi, are you hungry? You can have some of my food until you get something to eat.

*Karmi turned her head to face Cora with a cocked eyebrow.*

Karmi: *Deadpan* Really?

Hiro: Hey, don't knock it til you try it. Cora is a really good cook, with years of practice and experience to back it up.

Cora: *Smiles gratefully at Hiro* Aww, thank you Hiro.

Hiro: (Blushes and smile back) Heh, no problem babe.

Karmi: *Annoyed* If you two can stop making goo-goo eyes at each other and let me work in peace, that'd be great.

*Hiro and Cora blinked at Karmi's response, but soon their attention was diverted when they heard a crash and yelp that sounds a lot like Fred. Both stood up and left the table to check on their clumsy friend, and after they were out of sight, Karmi resumed her work. However her stomach growled and stood up to get in line, but spotted the food Cora offered her. She hestiantly grabbed the sushi roll and took a bite, she paused for a moment as her eyes widened before she sat back down and continued eating the food Cora gave her, slightly nodding in her approval.*

*Later on at night Hiro, Cora and Baymax were on the rooftop of a random building where the young teens spilled out to Baymax what happened when they met Karmi.*

Hiro: What is Karmi's problem?!

Cora: I don't know what is going on in her head to think she can act like a massive j*** towards us! We never did anything to her, I mean we only just met her today and she treats us like we're dirt underneath her shoes or something!

Baymax: Without a thorough scanning, I am unable to determine if she suffers from any health anomalies.

Gogo: Are you two really not getting this?

*Gogo zoomed down to meet up with the three.*

Gogo: Karmi doesn't have friends, the only thing she had going for her? Being the youngest genius at the school. Now for the two of you, that's your thing, you two took her thing.

Hiro: We don't want it to be our thing! We have our own thing!

Cora: Both separately and together I might add. But seriously, if she's really that butt-hurt over something like that, I hate to see her at worst tantrum.

Baymax: My scanner is picking up a disturbance nine blocks to the west.

Hiro: And there's our thing now! Co'mon Cora hop on!

*Hiro and Cora rushed to climb up on Baymax to stop whoever was disrupting the peace in the streets of San Fransokyo. But what they were up against was certainly not what they expect the criminals to be.*

*At the streets of San Franksokyo were two dancers performing, dressed in 80's fashion under the song of a typical 80's song. One was young woman and the other her mother. A blue orb floated above them with the crowds cheering on.*

Stage Mother: OK Juniper, practice is over, I want you to show me you have IT!

Juniper: Oh you know I have IT! Cause I'm about to bring IT!

*With impressive choreography they exposed their true intentions for dancing. The blue orb was not for decoration, and instead was an electric orb that safely flowed to them as they charged the ATMs and turned off the lights, and yet the crowd still cheered even when the money flowed from the ATMs for them to steal. But the music stopped as the gang arrived at the scene, and what they are seeing is widely confusing...*

Hiro: Umm...I'm not sure what's going on here, but you're gonna give the money back.

Juniper: I'M A STAR! You don't interrupt a star when she's leaving in awe on the stage!

Hiro: And uh, you are?

Stage Mother: I'm Barb!

Juniper: I'm Juniper.

High Voltage: And together we are High Voltage!

*A few seconds of silence pass before Cora, making a phone hand gesture, spoke*

Cora: Hey High Voltage, the 80's called, they said they want their hairspray back, and to stopping ripping off Jem!

Hiro: *Confused Eyebrow* What are-?

Cora: Jem's a cartoon from the 80's, Dad still has Jem Cassette tapes from when I was a toddler.

Baymax: Electricity may cause severe burns.

Gogo: I got this!

*Gogo zoomed to stop the dancing criminals, but their smooth moves-like jagger had their electric volts stopped Gogo in her tracks as she was sent flying through the air, leaving just the two teens and Baymax to stop them*

Barb: Juniper, I need more flair in those back flips and more sparkle in that smile!

Juniper: On it!

*Juniper did her back flips with flair and pizzazz as her mother instructed and clasped her hands to send a large bolt to mess up Baymax's armor. Hiro and Cora got off before their super suites were fried*

Baymax: Oh no.

*Baymax blasted off in the other direction while Hiro chased after him. But Cora stayed as Gogo returned.*

Gogo: Ok we need to power these two freaks down!

Cora: On it!

*Gogo threw her disk at the duo*

Barb: Juniper, electric fence!

Juniper: Oh yeah! lets go!

*The criminals created a net to catch the disk*

Barb: 2,5,7,8!

*With the disk thrown back it landed a blow on her stomach, making her land on her back as Hiro continued chasing Baymax.*

*The dastardly duo continued taking money as the crowd cheered for them*

Crowd: Juniper! Juniper!

Barb: And Barb!

Stranger with poor taste in women: I love you Juniper!

Hiro: They're robbing an ATM!

*A zap of electricity put him down.*

Barb: No, we're telling a story through dance!

"Think again!"

*Barb looked around for the voice before a fist met her gut, which then the figure revealed to be Cora. While the duo were distracted with Gogo' disk she turned on her camouflage to sneak around and take them from behind*

*But it was cut short as she felt a zap run through her, making her fall down on the ground. Said zap came from Juniper, who smirked at the girl. The two hopped on their car and drove off with the stolen money as Juniper called out to their adoring fans.*

Juniper: We love you all!

*The fallen four could only stare in confusion and disgust as the duo made a get away, to which Hiro rushed to Cora's aid and helped her stand up.

Hiro: You ok?

Cora: Could have been better.

*And Baymax tumbles through the air past them*

Baymax: Oh no.

*After that disastrous night, the gang grouped up at the dining hall as Hiro recounted on what happened.*

Hiro: They got applause. The bad guys! People clapped for the bad guys!

Cora: *Grumble* I wonder how they'll cheer after they realize that they stole their money from their bank accounts...

Gogo: *Snark* Telling a story through dance.

Hiro: Story of kicking our butts.

Wasabi: *Rubbing temples* Ohh and there's gonna be more butt kicking...Why did I choose a Yoga elective over Martial Arts?

Honey Lemon: One: you centered yourself, two: you strengthen your core, and three: you love the big ball!

Wasabi: *Chuckles* Yeah, big ball.

Fred: Colorful villains, underestimated because of their ridiculous personas? Like so many things, it was foretold in comic books!

Gogo: *Sarcasm* Yeah! We should probably run out and study a bunch of comic books to figure out how to beat them! *scoff*

Fred: Yes! But in this case I choose one in particular. Captain Fancy Issue 188!

Gogo: *To self* Don't ask, don't ask, don't...ugh! And what happened in Captain Fancy?

Fred: Captain Fancy lost battle after battle to a mother-daughter acrobat team.

Honey Lemon: Wow that is similar!

*Fred pointed to Honey Lemon to show that he has a point when it comes to super heroes.*

Hiro: Did they have a floating shock generator too?

Fred: Close! They had a trained bear named Grizzlvich.

Gogo: Shouldn't have asked.

*Wasabi noticed that Cora drawing out something on a piece of paper*

Wasabi: Cora, you drawing something?

Fred: Are you drawing Captain Fancy?

Cora: No, just drawing out new features for my suite. Hopefully with these new additions we could hypothetically take down a bear.

Hiro: Speaking of fighting a bear...

*Cora looked up to see what Hiro was looking at, and her face lowered to a frown. Across them was Karmi, seating on a table alone, surrounded by her books as she is writing something on her book*

Hiro: *Whew*

Cora: Wish us luck guys.

*The teens stood up and walked over to Karmi, knowing they must fill in the criteria for Professor Grandville's journals.*

Hiro: Hi Karmi, uh..hanging out at the cafeteria too hehe.

Cora: You doing alright Karmi? Did you eat something yet?

*Karmi looked up at Hiro and Cora, giving a disgusted ugh before resuming her work*

Cora: Okaaay...you don't want to talk, that's cool. Just that Grandville may be right about us hanging...

*Cora stopped speaking as she looked down at her book and her eyes widened. Hiro, confused on what caused her to loose her voice and eyes to widen, looked at Karmi's book. Inside the virus textbook were drawings; Specifically drawings of Hiro and Cora...in their super hero suites...styled in shoujo manga drawings complete with flowers and sparkles.*

Hiro: Wait is that?-

*Karmi slammed her book shut.*

Karmi: Eyes on your own work creeper!

*Karmi stood up as she packed her belongings and left. When Hiro turned to regard Cora, he saw his girlfriend's jaw dropped and eyes still widened. The rest of the gang walked over to the two young teens and saw that Cora was frozen with a shocked look on her face*

Honey Lemon: Cora... Are you ok?

*Hiro had to turn Cora around to face the others and close her mouth for her before Cora regained her train of thought*

Cora:...You guys will not believe this.

*Night came again as Baymax with Hiro and Cora on his back while carrying Fred were discussing what they discovered with Karmi*

Hiro: You know, I don't get it! Why would she draw Super Hero me and Super Hero Cora!

Fred: Because Big Hero 7 Hiro and Big Hero 7 Cora are Hero Hiro and Hero Cora, and regular Hiro and regular Cora are just some boring run of the mill boy and girl genius couple.

Baymax: But there is only one Hiro and one Cora.

Fred: In this dimensional timeline!

*The beeping of the Comlinks came through as Gogo gave her report*

Gogo: It's High Voltage, again!

Hiro: Let's go!

*They directed Baymax to the location of High Voltage's latest scheme. Cora checked over her upgraded armor as she muttered to herself*

Cora: Ok, let's see how they deal with us when fire meets fire.

*The crowd cheered for Juniper as Barb threw out the money from the bank car to stuff in their own car.*

Juniper: My dreams are coming true! You hear that Mama they love me! They really love me!

Barb: Us Juniper, they love us!

Gogo: Hey!

*High Voltage turned their attention to Gogo*

Gogo: You two got lucky last time.

*Gogo skated down the rails as she began to attack*

Barb: Juniper! Squat dance, with feeling!

*Juniper backflipped to her mother as she shot out her electric shocks and disabled Gogo's skates*

Wasabi: Probably not the right time right now, but your dance moves are perfection!

Barb: She does have my thighs.

*One with footstep she shot out an electrical shock to stun Wasabi, but he was quick to 'dance' his way out off the volts. In the middle of the crowd, Karmi went to see what was going and saw what was happening.*

Honey Lemon: Rubber insilates electricity!

*She threw her rubber chem ball to stop the dancing criminal queens, but they dodged her ball as Juniper aimed the electrical orb to Honey Lemon, which sent her flying through the air only to be caught by Fred with Baymax and the teens. They finally met up as the crowd cheered for the rest of Big Hero 7 arrived, which Karmi then brought out her phone and took a picture of Hiro and Cora in their super suits blushing and smiling like an idiot.*

*High Voltage shot out a zap of electricity to the team.*

Hiro: Watch out!

*The team scattered as Hiro and Cora still on Baymax's back did their best to fly away from the bolt. But it zapped Baymax's suite anyway as Hiro and Cora held onto each other as they fell down only to be caught by Fred on the last second.*

Hiro and Cora: Baymax!

*In the distance Baymax was spinning as his suite short-circuited*

Baymax: Powerpowerpowerpowerpower surge powerpower surge!

*The electric shock had malfunctioned his suit to the point of unintentionally releasing his rocket fist towards them. The team was quick to dodge the fist, but the fist hit a street light which broke in half and was falling towards the crowd beside it. Karmi was too late to as the crowd skedaddled their way out. Hiro and Cora ran out to save the young girl who they did not recognize at the time to be Karmi. They grabbed Karmi safely as they all landed on the ground.*

Cora: That was close. Are you okay?

Hiro: Are you alright-*gasp*

*It is at this time that Hiro and Cora realized that the girl they rescued was Karmi*

Karmi: *Giggling* I am now.

*Karmi took a photo of the two of them which caused them to flinch. But then they spotted another volt of electricity head towards them, which Cora stood up and reached out her hand. High Voltage smirked, expecting the girl to be stunned, but gapsed as Cora's hand simply cackled unharmed, which she then threw the bolt back at the dastardly duo. High Voltage dodged the attack safely, to which Karmi saw that as stars were glimmering in her eyes*

Karmi: *In awe and this time not forced but actually genuine* So cool...!

*Cora rushed towards the duo as she let out a war cry, dodging their attacks as quickly grabbed the volts and threw them back towards the mother-daughter duo. But the villainous dancers flipped over to the girl and both delivered a double kick to the girl's stomach and back.*

Hiro: No!

*Karmi watched as High Voltage took this opportunity to run with the money as Hiro ran to Cora who was lying on the floor coughing. Hiro laid Cora on his lap as he looked over her*

Hiro: Cora are you ok?

Cora: *Smiles* Yeah...the upgrade worked better than I thought..still got beat though... But I'm always okay when I'm with you.

*The two smiled gently at each other, temporarily forgetting about their defeat, and Karmi could not help but squeal over the scene playing out before her.*

Karmi: This is so going online tonight!

*The school day came as the nerd gang moped over their defeat.*

Gogo: Seven to two, and they still kicked our butts.

Honey Lemon: I call it seven to three, I'm counting that energy orb thing.

Fred: You mean that thing that makes it like that circus bear in Captain Fancy Issue 188? Am I right? I'm surprised we're the only ones who see that connection.

*Just then Hiro and Cora arrived at the Gang's table*

Hiro: As if losing wasn't bad enough, Karmi got a good look at our faces!

Wasabi: Tell her you two have clones?

Cora: Wasabi, she's in Bio tech! she'd see right through that and know that it's really us!

Hiro: *Sigh* Well, might as well get it over with.

*Hiro and Cora walked over to Karmi to talk over last night. Cora spotted Karmi blushing as she lightly rubbed the picture of Hiro in his Hero suit and sigh as she swiped it to a picture of them in the aftermath of the battle*

Hiro: Hi Karmi...

Karmi: Looks like I caught you two!

Hiro: Hey...Karmi umm..any chance we can convince you to keep this quiet?

Karmi: Ew, you think I want people to know you have a crush on me?

Hiro: Ew What?!

Cora:*Glaring* Excuse you?! Hiro and I are dating!

Karmi: Tch, yeah. But who would want to date someone like you miss 'Oh-I've-been-home-schooled-all-my-life-and-never-had-any-friends-much-less-a-boyfriend-before-I-came-to-SFIT-but-now-I-have-the-most-perfect-boyfriend-in-the-world'! Your relationship makes me sick just looking at you two. Besides, it's SOOO obvious! Your so called 'boyfriend' is always saying stuff like *Poorly imitating Hiro* 'Hey Karmi. We should work on our project." N5-4 totally called it. But these two...

*Karmi looks at the photo with Hero Hiro and Hero Cora in each others arms*

Karmi: I admit I'm a little jealous that this guy is already with someone else, but who could blame him? She's super cool and pretty! The way they look at each other, protect each other and are willing risk their lives for each other is so romantic! I would kill just to have someone like him give this much devotion to me as he does for her! They are definitely the new Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask!

*Karmi got back to coddling the picture of the superhero couple while the actual couple slowly backed away from her and walked towards the lab. Both of them arrived with very confused and concerned expressions on their faces, trying to process what has happened.*

Honey Lemon: Oh no she knows?

Hiro: Well...

Honey Lemon: Oh! A memory wipe!

Cora: Actually...

*Honey Lemon quickly gathered her chemicals to conduct a memory wipe on Karmi.*

Honey Lemon: I'll need this and this and this! Ooh and this!

*Honey Lemon brought out a blender to mix the chemicals together as she muttered to herself.*

Honey Lemon: Ooh! One Amnesia Geno coming up!

Cora: Karmi didn't know that 'They' were 'Us'!

Wasabi: Wait, wait? *Turns off the blender causing the lid to pop off and the contents inside to foam and overflow from said-blender* How could she not notice you two were yourselves? It's so obvious.

Hiro: It gets worse! She's in love with him! Me! I don't know it's complicated...

Cora: Not to mention that while she confessed that she's in love with my boyfriend's Hero ego, she started talking about Hero us as if we are the next Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, her exact words by the way, like a crazy fangirl!

Fred: Ahhh the power of the Secret Identity. Intrepid investigator Reater Rampart never realized cab driver Lash Luper was secretly Captain Fancy!

*Fred fell off the chair he was lounging on when he was explaining over this*

Gogo: This is a comic book thing again right?

Fred: Indeed! Quickly to the Fred room!

*One Fred montaging Batman transition later, Fred and Gogo are in his room about to look over the comic book collection he has acquired over the years.*

Fred: We'll start you with the basics, Battle Max and Avenger duct, maybe throw in a little Mia Mia.

Gogo: Skip the training wheels, I'm going straight to Captain Fancy 188.

Fred: Wooaaah!

*Fred shut the drawer close*

Fred: No!

Gogo: Fred, it's the only way we'll figure out how to beat High Voltage. I won't crease it's stupid pages or anything.

Fred: Stupid?! You need to dial it down before you crease our friendship! We don't rummage through classic comics like we're barbarians! These are works of art, they must be treated as such.

*Fred was quick to pull out a container for Gogo*

Fred: And gum?

*Gogo put away her chewing gum.*

Fred: Thank you. And the back up!

*Gogo grumbled before giving up the extra gum.*

Fred: Hands up!

*Fred put on both gloves on Gogo and himself.*

Fred: Also I should probably tell you I don't have Captain Fancy Issue 188. Okay!

Gogo: What?

Fred: I only know what's within its pages based on whispered rumors.

Gogo: Do not start at the beginning.

Fred: I'll start at the beginning!

*Gogo groaned as the lights turned off as Fred turned on a flash light to tell the story like a urban legend.*

Fred: June 1963. Disgruntled artist, AJ Doehertz sets a wildly inappropriate drawing of Captain Fancy into Issue 188. It wasn't until after it was printed that people caught the offending...image the entire run was pulped, save for one copy smuggled to freedom. Few have ever seen it. To my eternal frustration, I am not one of the lucky few.

Gogo: So where is it now?

Fred: In the clutches of my Arch-Nemesis. Be forewarned, he's a dark and dangerous foe!

*The two arrived at a fairly normal comic book store where a young boy with a large mole under his left eye was reading a comic book passing the time for the lack of customers. Fred gestured Gogo to talk to the kid.*

Gogo: Hey kid is your Dad here? We need to talk to the owner.

Creepy kid: You're talking to the owner dream girl.

Fred: Jilien, isn't he?

*The kid lowered down on his chair and got on the floor*

Mole: Richardson Mole, San Fransokyo's most eligible eleven year old. And you are?

*When He attempted to kiss her hand, Gogo was quick to remove it.*

Gogo: Much older than you!

Mole: Nice...

Gogo: Fred, talk to him.

Fred: Hey, this is a business call Richardson! Lets keep this professional!

Mole: Very well.

Gogo: We need to see Captain Fancy 188.

Mole: Ah the very issue I sniped from you at that online Auction.

Fred: You cut the power to my house!

Mole: Those charges were never proven.

Gogo: Can we just see the dumb comic book?

Mole: Oh I like you angry dream girl, follow me to the Mole hole!

*Mole walked over to a telephone booth where he pulled the phone and fell down.*

Mole: I'm waiting!

*The duo walked over to the booth where they both squeezed in and than fell down to see an arcade of sorts featuring Fred, more specifically games where bodily harm is done to Fred.*

Fred: I told you he hates me.

Mole: Beat my high score on any of these and I will let you see Captain Fancy 188.

*Gogo walked to the Fred version of Whack-A-Mole, but the moles were Fred's heads.*

Gogo: Whack a Fred, let's do this.

Mole: Ooh, poor choice. This is my favorite game and my high score is-

*Gogo began to whack the Freds into oblivion, releasing all the pent up frustration and fury as if it were the real Fred, which Real Fred is developing worries that maybe he should be more careful with Gogo from now on.*

Mole: I'm impressed.

Fred: I'm concerned.

*Mole activated a game booth to reveal the true location of Issue 188 of Captain Fancy. But even Mole knew better than to carelessly throw away caution.*

Mole: Gum.

*Gogo gave her gum to the pincers*

Mole: Strawberry, nice.

*With the conformation of the hand pass, the door revealed the long awaited Issue 188 of Captain Fancy.*

Fred: *Gasp* It's beautiful!

Gogo: Oh just give it!

*Fred was quick to grab her hand to stop her*

Fred: Ba ba ba ba ba ba! Gloves.

*As Fred and Gogo were at Mole's Hole to read up on Issue 188, Hiro and Cora were at the lab with Karmi who currently studying N5-4 wearing a hazmat suit.*

Karmi: N5-4 you put on some weight! There's some junk in your nucleus. Pathegemic aniba appears thermo stable.

Hiro: Hey Karmi-Ah! I mean Hi! Hello, how's it uh going?

*Baymax walked over to the booth where all three teens are. Cora looked around.*

Cora: Should we be wearing some bio hazard suites?

Karmi: Are your eyes bleeding?

Baymax: They are currently not.

Karmi: Then you two are fine, probably.

Hiro: So...you like dangerous organisms

Karmi: Duh, by studying them we can figure out therapeutic uses for them. It's called science.

Hiro: That's uh, actually interesting. Maybe when your done we can talk about our journal? Uh you know, just the one that's due Friday!

Karmi: Nobody cares. Hand me N5-4.

Hiro: Oh uh sure.

*Hiro placed his phone down next to the dish Karmi was reffering too. However at that moment Hiro's phone buzzed from a call from Wasabi. The vibration of the phone caused the Virus to disintegrate into nothingness.*

Karmi:*Gasp* No! You killed N5-4!

Baymax: This is a fortunate result. N5-4 would have soon reached a contagious factor of ten.

Karmi: N5-4 was the first pathogen I ever formed.

Baymax: I will download proper disinfection methods to ensure no particles of N5-4 survives.

Karmi: He was more than a flesh eating virus! He was a friend.

Baymax: If you have any more N5-4 in storage, we should dispose-

Karmi: Shut him up!

*Cora glared at Karmi*

Cora: Baymax is a nurse Karmi! He's suppose to put the needs of human health first before everything else, and that includes knowing how to get rid of deadly viruses! And if N5-4 had reached that level you could had gotten Hiro and I killed! Or are you too self-absorbed in your precious deadly viruses to realize or even care about that!

Baymax: You two appear tense. I have some relaxation suggestions.

*The phone buzzed once again while Baymax listed the following*

Karmi: Well, answer it!

*Hiro grabbed the phone quickly and answered.*

Wasabi: High Voltage, San Fransokyo Trust. Now!

Hiro; Okay yeah, we'll be there as soon as we can.

*Hiro turned to Cora and Karmi glaring daggers at each other as Baymax continued listing relaxation methods.*

Hiro: So, something came up and umm, we need to umm, We just gotta go.

Karmi: You think I want you to stay!?

Cora: Don't you talk to Hiro like that!

*Hiro quickly grabbed Cora and Baymax so that any chances of a war between his girlfriend and his...'friend' do not escalate.*

*At the depths of Mole's hole, Fred studied carefully over the contents of Captain Fancy Issue 188. It was then he finally came across the infamous page.*

Mole: Good luck unseeing that!

Gogo: Oh co'mon grow up. Read faster.

Fred: A wise man once said if you want a solution, you can't rush Fred.

*Gogo yanked on Fred's ear in response.*

Fred: OW Ow Ow Ow Ow! I'll read faster!

*Fred continued to observe the content as Gogo's phone just beeped.*

Gogo: Yeah?

Wasabi: High Voltage! San Fransokyo Trust! Now!

*Gogo hung up her phone as Fred struck gold*

Fred: Yes! I get it! I totally get it!

Gogo: So you actually found an answer in that thing?

Fred: Couldn't be more clear.

Gogo: Great, time to roll!

*Gogo dragged Fred to the exit to suit up and beat High Voltage once and for all.*

Mole: Come again! Not you Fred!

*At the scene of the crime, High Voltage was cracking open the safe to grab the loot.*

Barb: Big finish Juniper!

Juniper: Oh yeah!

*Juniper flipped to the door and back to see it explode and expose the money inside.*

Barb: Now freestyle into that vault and get that cash!

Juniper: On it!

*But before she could enter, a wall of Rubber blocked her way.*

Wasabi: You don't need to steal, you have real talent!

Honey Lemon: He actually makes a really good point. You guys should audition for Top Feet!

Barb: Stars don't audition!

*A flash of electricity was shot their way and quickly they dodged.*

*As of while Hiro and Cora were on Baymax.*

Hiro: I don't get it. I don't, what can we even learn from Karmi? She talks to those things! Ugh, we're way better adjusting than she is!

Baymax: True, you both have each other and a strong social network for support. Karmi does not.

Cora: So why did Grandville-

*The vibration rumbled strongly.*

Hiro: Let's finish this later.

Baymax: I will set a reminder.

*The three flew down to the scene of the crime to join the rest of their team at the bank.*

*At the bank, Juniper struck her electric whip to cut a pillar in half to crush Wasabi, but it didn't for Baymax stopped the pillar*

Baymax: Hello Wasabi.

*Baymax threw the pillar and picked up Wasabi to his feet.*

Baymax: You will be fine.

Hiro: Time to power down ladies.

Juniper: Step off, we're the headliners! It's Juniper's time to shine!

Barb: Juniper launch! 2,5,7,8!

*The electric orb fired up as it charged, launching her to Baymax as he suddenly caught her in his hand. She smirked as the electric currents were at her fingertips and could damage Baymax's armor again.*

Baymax: Oh no.

*With his armor and system scrambled, Hiro, Cora, and Wasabi joined Honey Lemon to avoid Baymax's malfuction.

Baymax: Reboot. Reboot. Reboot. Data packet invalid. Data Packet invalid.

Hiro: We gotta tap out. Anybody wanna tap in?

Gogo: We do!

*Just then Gogo zoomed in with Fred riding on her back*

Gogo: Fred knows how to beat these dance punks.

Fred: Actually I have no idea.

Gogo: What?! Ugh, you said you got the answer from the comic book!

Fred: Yeah to explain Hiro and Cora's Secret Identities situation, was I not clear?

*A zap sent Fred flying towards the gang along with Gogo by crashing into her.*

Gogo: This is a disaster.

Fred: Tell me about it.

Gogo: So Issue 188 didn't tell you ANYTHING that would help defeat them?

Fred: No! Overall, 188 was a letdown. Maybe Richardson did me a favor all those years ago when he cut the power to my house.

Cora: Cut the power...That"s it!

Gogo: Looks like you and I got the same idea kid.

Cora: Honey Lemon, insulate Gogo's disks!

Honey Lemon: Cora, Gogo, you're both geniuses!

Cora: I'll distract High Voltage while Gogo gets that thing down.

*Cora stepped out off the safe zone and began to face off the Mother-Daughter duo. High Voltage threw lighting bolts at Cora but she was quick to either dodge or use her gloves to absorb the electricity and shoot it right back at them.*

Cora: Now Gogo!

*High Voltage was caught off guard as Gogo threw her rubber disks at them and finally cover the electric orb in rubber, rendering High Voltage's powers useless.*

Fred: Use a catchphrase! Say a dumb line like it's a joke even though it's not really a joke.

Gogo: Last dance Freaks!

Fred: *Laughs* Good one!

*With their power useless they were surrounded by seven individuals ready to throw them in prison.*

Barb: Escape dance Juniper! 2,5,7,8!

Honey Lemon: Not so fast!

*Honey lemon threw a rubber chem ball that immediately encapsulated Barb, leaving Juniper free.*

Barb: Juniper!

Juniper: Sorry Mama I'm going solo!

*Juniper backflipped towards the exit*

Juniper: You can't stop the art of danc-

*The art of dance was stopped when her face slammed into Baymax's metallic wings.*

Baymax: My system has been restored. Is anyone hurt?

Gogo: Aside from their pride? No one was hurt thankfully.

*Honey Lemon encapsulated Juniper as soon as she was down.*

Barb: You're grounded!

Baymax: Have I missed anything of significance?

Hiro: We're all good Baymax, just some pretty quick thinking from Cora and Gogo.

Gogo: Big ups to Fred for the inspiration, even if it was completely unintentional.

Fred: That's what I do!

Hiro: Fred, Secret Identity, What have you got?

Fred: Uh yes, you see... Captain Fancy's alter ego Slash Luper may look like Captain Fancy in a sweater vest. But nobody ever recognizes him, not even Newsreport Reater Rampart!

Cora: And that's supposed to explain why Karmi can't recognize us as Hero Hiro and Hero me?

Fred: Yeah, it's a super hero thing. People see what they want to see

*That Friday Morning, Hiro gave his journal to Grandville with Cora and Karmi beside him.*

Hiro: People see what they want to see. Take Lash Luper-

Grandville: Who?

Cora: Not important.

Hiro: When people look at Cora or I, what do they see? Robotics major, Marine bio major, teen geniuses, and maybe just some teens trying to fit in. Because that's what Karmi saw. And we thank her for that, and for our journal.

Grandville: Karmi?

Karmi: I don't know what to say...

Cora: Cause you're modest that way. Professor, Karmi was great this week, we learned a lot.

Grandville: I'm happy to hear it. You're dismissed.

*Once Karmi walked silently to the door, Hiro and Cora looked at Grandville.*

Hiro: So...all this wasn't actually about Cora and I was it?

Grandville: We are through here Mr. Hamada.

Hiro: It was actually about Karmi, am I right?

Grandville: I said we are through.

*As soon as the teen couple exited Grandville's office, Cora suddenly gave a heartfelt kiss to Hiro, to which he blushed immensely while Karmi simply rolled her eyes. As soon as she let go she whispered.*

Cora: You and Baymax go on ahead to the marine hall. I'll catch up in a bit.

Hiro: A-a, okay C-Cutie, I-I mean Cora!

*Hiro, still somewhat dazed and blushing like crazy from the kiss, starts speed walking away with Baymax following after him.*

Baymax: Your hormones are rapidly surging and there's an increase of endorphins and oxytocin.

Hiro: *Getting embarrassed* Now's not the time Baymax.

Baymax: Your heart beat is accelerating and you have sweaty palms.

Hiro: *Still embarrassed and now getting annoyed* Let it go Baymax!

*As soon as Hiro and Baymax were out of sight, Cora turned her attention to Karmi. She took a deep sigh as she thought over her words, finally she spoke.*

Cora: Karmi, you and I both know that Hiro and I had a perfect chance to expose your rotten behavior, but we didn't.

Karmi: I know...hehe, I guess your boyfriend really has it hard for-

Cora: *Hardened glare* That kind of talk has to stop now. You had given me every reason why I should have spoken up to Grandville over your infectious sour attitude. You were butt-hurt over Hiro and I joining SFIT, and that's something you'll have to face eventually in the future once the upcoming generation realizes they can be here too if they work hard and give their all into it. But you didn't stop there, you continuously insulted Hiro and I whenever Grandville wasn't around to hear it, not only that, you continue to claim that Hiro likes you even when you know clearly that We. Are. Dating! Even then you gag at us like a preschooler calling out on us for having cooties which is ironic since you study them! This social experiment was all about you and you know it. You and I both got here because we worked our butts off to get into this school! Especially Hiro after all with what happened with his brother and Callaghan. We all made it here because of hard work and giving it our all to be the best we can be, and you can not act like you're the queen here because you kiss up to Grandville. You know why real Queens like Elizabeth or even fictional ones like Elsa are respected and loved monarchs? They gave their subjects the same respect any human being deserves.

*At the time Karmi could only stay silent, any words to backlash at Cora was gone.*

Cora: Ultimately the reason why Hiro and I didn't expose the deadly virus you acted to us was because...you have no experience talking to us. I understand that, I was home-schooled my whole life up until now. I remember how fun it was to study subjects far more advanced than others..but it was still lonely. Hiro and I are together and have friends because Tadashi took the time to listen. He supported us and talked to us, and our friends have been amazing people. You know how I said we can all work hard and give it our all to achieve anything? That includes friendships too. And friendships require respect for each other. Look, I have something I think you should see.

*Cora pulled up her phone to reveal her own personal video diary, first showing Hiro and Cora hanging out with their friends, then to the week with Karmi.*

Cora: I have proof to show Grandville how you really treated us. But I won't...under one condition. You have to give respect to earn respect, that's how I won't expose this. If you genuinely show decency to Hiro and I and anybody else who goes to talk to you, let them speak and actually listen. This doesn't mean we're automatically BFFs, what this starts is respect as classmates. It's your choice to start a genuine connection with people who may also share in your interests too. Okay?

Karmi:...Okay...

Cora: Cool...so...I also noticed you ate the food I gave you before. You can ask me anytime you want-

*An alert on Karmi's phone interrupted them.

Karmi: Big Hero 7 news alert!

*On the phone was a news reporter telling last nights events.*

News reporter: High Voltage's rhythmic reign of terror began a reign of error when the Mother-Daughter duo ran into Big Hero 7-

*Karmi paused the video to zoom in on Super Hero Hiro and Super Hero Cora smiling together and holding hands.*

Karmi: *Sigh* These two are so romantic, if only someone like him would look at me like he looks at her.

*Cora shook her head before she left to join Hiro for their date.*

Cora: *Sing song voice* See ya later Karmi~

News reporter: Big Hero 7 'shocked' High Voltage by insulating them in a maximum security prison.

*The person watching the news now saw the news reporter give the Big Hero 7 report, but he was more invested on Hiro and Cora. As the image of them appeared half of his face glowed an ominous mauve pink glow.*

To look for the previous Chapters, search Big Hero 7 on my tags! Love you guys!

#Big Hero 7 #Big Hero 6 fanfic #Hiro Hamada #Cora Mizichio #Hiro Hamada x OC #Baymax #fred frederickson iv #Wasabi #Gogo tomago #Honey Lemon #Professor Grandville #High Voltage #Juniper Bh6 #Barb bh6 #Obake

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kit-kat-1221 · 6 years ago

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Darling in the Franxx Ikuno

So this is my little rant about Code:196 Ikuno from Darling in the Franxx (spoilers ahead)

This girl is amazing and indeed as Studio Trigger stated in a magazine interview a couple months back, that she would have a big role later in the series.

And guess what? She did!!!! :3

But before I go on about what has been ticking me off the past day about Studio Trigger and what they did to Ikuno I’m going to state what this awesome gal did.

1) Ikuno risked her life along with the rest of her squad to fight against creatures trying to kill the human race and survived! Not many pilots live long. And some may not survive after a few missions. But she did!

2) She finally confessed her feelings to her teammate that she kept a secret and bottled inside. Even though they were unrequited her teammate still saw her as a precious friend and didn’t try to ostracize her or make her feel bad.

3) she started learning around age 16 (estimate) about biology, the human body, medicine and pharmaceutical drug creation all on her own, yes she taught herself, and because of all of her work she allowed for the survival of all the pilots who had accelerated aging and became a doctor her friends could rely on. The reason why any of them can live is because of all her research and dedication, without her they would have all been dead! Yeah without her starting that work they would have all died young.

4) she risk her life and expended her lifespan and shortened it by piloting and releasing enough energy to blast a hole through a sealed passage so that her friends could go save their teammate and stop what was a world destroying bomb.

5) despite having a weaker body, or I believe it was implied in the series that her numbers were always on the lower side but that may have also been because her her partner not being meant for her..., she pushes herself to do what she can with her short life.

6) she was essentially trusted by Goro to look after Ichigo and the others when he went out to travel and distribute food and supplies to other survivors (That’s how I interpreted the scene anyhow...)

7) even if she isn’t a romantic partner it is hinted that she and Naomi have a very strong bond after the 10 year time skip as over the years Naomi helped and looked after Ikuno

8) She’s an adorable lesbian lady who helps the ones she loves and do what she can to make sure they are happy and healthy. (Her smile thinking about how Ichigo’s baby will be like and Ichigo’s smile back show how much Ichigo cares for her still and how Ikuno’s live confession in the past did not strain their relationship)

Now to my beef with some of these idiots...

They are claiming Studio Trigger is trying to do the “Bury your Gays” trope because Ikuno was dying. And well I can’t claim Trigger is or isn’t homophobic because I don’t belong to it... but guess what? They had bisexual characters, a lesbian character, role reversal, questions on humanity, characters who showed what it means to be human, it’s showed people who were fooled into false beliefs, it showed obsession, codependency, revenge, depression and sucidality, anxiety, teen pregnancy, child experimentation, deforestation, racism, and many many many other things.

What I hate is that what they are taking away is that Ikuno is dying and Ikuno is a lesbian therefor the studio must be homophobic and trying to bury the gays. No Ikuno is dying faster than the others because of the strain she went through and how hard she pushed herself despite knowing the risks because she wanted to protect those she loved. And besides there is more to Ikuno than her being a lesbian. (As I listed above) so yeah I think those morons should feel ashamed because they are seeing a trope and not the wonderful character Trigger gave us.

And if anyone brings up: well they are pushing heterosexual relationships. Umm well guess what? All of the adults were soul ascended and all the younger adults and children are what is left which are still quite fewer in number. A lot of those people are probably going to have children. To leave behind a future. But guess what!? Not once is it said that a girl liking a girl or guy liking a guy is wrong!

And if I hear the whole: well what about Ichigo she turned down both Goro and Ikuno why is she with Goro?

Umm well for one... she was originally in love with Hiro, two she has insinuated that guys are her thing (the whole pilot connection seems to also be linked to sexual orientation somewhat. Not entirely but somewhat. Most emotional syncing though I believe.) and Ichigo’s feelings about Ikuno were not romantic at any point. She lives Ikuno just not romantically.

And then is people go with Well why did Mitsuru have to end up with Kokoro?

Honestly even if he is bisexual it doesn’t make him any less bisexual by being with Kokoro -.- truthfully I always thought their relationship seemed very one sided but Mitsuru acted on his own emotions and feelings and wasn’t pressured and now lives a very happy life so that’s that.

And then if anyone says anything about the Nines: who believed gender got in the way of a lot of things and was only tolerated for piloting. Well for one they were conditioned to think a certain way and believed in those thoughts wholeheartedly. Heck they are all assumed to be bisexual at the very least, or something around those lines. And if anyone says “well they are doing the bury your gays “ thing with the Nines the answer is. Are you stupid? Or rather what have you been watching? Alpha blatantly tells Ichigo that they need maintenance in order to survive. And Dr. Werner Franks said that they were clones of Zero Two (who is a clone of the Kaloxosaur princess) who didn’t inherit her Klaxosaur blood. They are clones of a clone. They are inherently not going to last long without proper medical procedures that unfortunately weren’t available for them and the last three decided to go out as warriors as they were literally made to be soldiers. They made their own choices and died they way they wanted to, in a fight not in a bed.

Studio Trigger May be many things and I’m not saying that Dating in the Franxx is flawless because it isn’t. But this was a beautiful story with a lot of symbolism, imagery, moral conflicts, and just a lot of emotion and allegory as well as call backs to earlier stated materials. It never forgot where it started nor the story it was going to tell. So please treat the studio with respect. As an anime first show this was a wonderful ride.

TL;DR Ikuno is more than just a lesbian girl, she’s an amazing young women and very intelligent you guys are just salty. ;P

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primatechnosynthpop · 6 years ago

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A rose shall bloom (and then shall fade)- part 1

When it came to the various applications of her healing powers, there was one thing that never really crossed Claire's mind. She was just a teenager when her ability manifested, so mortality or lack thereof was the last thing on her mind. She didn't stop to consider whether or not her power would allow her to live forever until she heard from Hiro about the ancient samurai named Adam Monroe who stayed alive for centuries without aging. However, once she learned about this, it was hard not to think about. And once she started thinking about the prospect of never aging, never naturally dying, her mind went to places that she wished it wouldn't.

Would she outlive everyone around her?

She would, of course, outlive her parents. That was normal, regardless of how much it sucked. She'd probably also outlive Peter and most of his friends--Mohinder, Matt, Tracy, Hiro. But by how long--a few years? A couple decades? Would she outlive Gretchen? Lyle? Would she end up outliving her own children, if she ever had any? What if she outlasted everyone by centuries?

She didn't have the answers for any of those questions, and that really scared her. As time went by, these questions weighed ever heavier on her mind. She tried talking to Peter about it, thinking he would understand. He ruffled her hair and told her not to worry about it.

"It's okay, Claire," he told her earnestly. "I'm not going anywhere for a long time."

"I know," she said. "I just... what if I end up having to watch everyone around me grow old and die?"

Peter didn't have an answer for that; nobody did.

A few months went by, and eventually a few years. Claire graduated from college, getting a masters in social sciences and a minor in biology. She still had no real idea as to where she wanted to take her life. Funny as it was, part of her had always figured she wouldn't make it to adulthood, but she was here now, and she felt completely lost. Her family assured her that it was normal for girls her age to feel that way, and that she could take her time figuring herself out.

She and Gretchen moved into a small apartment together, and she started looking for a lasting job. One day, Sandra called her up asking for help changing a light bulb. Claire, who hadn't seen her mother much lately and was eager to accept any opportunity to pay her a visit, drove across town to Sandra's house. When she pulled up in the driveway, she was surprised not to hear any barking coming from inside.

She walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. Still no barking. That was odd. Sandra answered the door and her face lit up upon seeing Claire. She pulled her into a tight hug and then pulled apart to coo over how adult Claire looked. Claire winced when she noticed the extra wrinkles decorating her mother's face which hadn't been there before.

"How are you doing, sweetie?" Sandra asked as they stood in the doorway. "Is everything going okay for you at the apartment?"

"It's going great," Claire said. Looking over her mother's shoulder into the unusually quiet house, she scanned the hall for a little ball of fur scampering toward them. She saw nothing. "We should probably close the door," she said, ignoring the creeping suspicion that she knew the reason for the absence of barking. "We don't want Mr. Muggles to get out."

As soon as she said this, Sandra's face fell in just such a way that Claire's suspicions were instantly confirmed.

"Oh, honey, I guess I forgot to tell you," she murmured. "Mr. Muggles isn't around anymore. He got really sick a couple months back, and he had to be put down."

"Oh..." Claire faltered, unsure of how to react. Rationally speaking, she supported it made sense; if humans couldn't live forever, then dogs sure as hell couldn't. "I'm sorry, Mom," she said after a beat. "That must have been really hard for you."

"It was," Sandra sighed. Glancing back down the empty hallway, she stepped aside and gestured for Claire to come inside. "But anyway, let me show you the light you came to fix..."

Nodding, Claire followed her mother down the hall to a lightbulb which was screwed in crookedly. She felt kind of numb. Even though Mr. Muggles had just been a dog, to her it felt like a sign. It was the first of many family members she would outlive. (She didn't count her biological parents, because as much as their deaths had hurt, it hadn't been from natural causes.) It was probably stupid to look at it that way, but she couldn't help it.

Claire wound up getting a retail job at a clothing store. To say it was a grueling job would be an understatement, but she needed to provide for herself while she and Gretchen hunted for better jobs. She was pleased to discover that Tracy worked at the same establishment. Sometimes they hung out together after work, going to get coffee or something similar. Occasionally Claire, Gretchen, and Tracy would get together with Lauren Gilmore and Peter's girlfriend Emma for a girl's night. Claire tried inviting Angela to come along a couple times, but she laughed and said that she was much too old. Claire wanted to disagree, but looking at her grandmother, she was shocked to realize just how old and frail Angela was beginning to look.

One winter, Claire decided to talk to her dad about her potential immortality. He had become more and more withdrawn in recent years, but she finally got the chance to talk to him when they attended a holiday party at the Petrellis' house together. Getting together with friends and relatives always rubbed her the wrong way. They kept getting older, and she didn't seem to be aging at all.

"Hey, Dad," she said apprehensively when she approached him at the event. "You used to be friends with a guy who had a power like mine, right?"

Noah glanced up at her from where he was sitting on the couch next to a couple other guys, raising his eyebrows. "I don't know if I'd say Monroe and I were ever friends," he said. "But I certainly knew of him. Why do you ask, Claire-bear?"

"Well, I've kind of been thinking..." Claire scrunched up her face as the other people sitting with Noah looked up at her inquisitively. She had nothing against them, but this wasn't something she wanted anyone to overhear. She put on a cheery smile and thought of a different, less personal subject. "Um, do you want to see the pictures I took at PodCon?"

"Oh, sure," Noah said. "You went as the orc lady and her lizard wife from that dnd podcast you like, right?"

Claire nodded. It had taken a lot of body paint to make the cosplay work, and even after all that her girlfriend wasn't quite buff enough to pull the look off, but they had still had a good time. While she showed her dad the photos, she shoved her worries about outliving people to the back of her mind. What was she even worried about? She had no way of knowing if that was even going to happen to her. And even if it did, she wouldn't have to worry about it for a long time.

However, as much as she told herself not to worry, she couldn't help it. Even just looking at Noah now, she was distressed by how much his hair was thinning, and how the creases on his face deepened more every day.

Claire couldn't get drunk, and Gretchen couldn't handle alcohol at all, so they didn't go out drinking together often. The one time they did go out to a bar to celebrate Claire getting promoted, Claire got ID'd. She realized that, despite being in her mid twenties, she still looked like a teenager. This didn't phase her nearly as much as the adjacent fact that Gretchen didn't get ID'd along with her. It was like what Claire had been afraid of: her girlfriend was aging, and she wasn't.

From that point, Claire started checking the mirror every day, searching for any signs of the natural progression of time. Day after day, week after week, there wasn't a wrinkle or even a single gray hair in sight.

"Well, of course there's no gray hairs," Gretchen said to her once. "You're not old yet!"

"You're right," Claire said, forcing a giggle, because that was what Gretchen wanted to hear. Everybody wanted her to be just fine, and not constantly on the verge of freaking out because she was going to outlive everyone she loved and damn it, why her, why did she have to be-- "I guess I'm worried about nothing."

"Just wait until you reach forty," Gretchen teased. "There'll be plenty of gray hairs by then."

"God, I hope not," Claire lied.

One spring, during a rainy spell, Claire's phone rang. She picked it up without checking to see who was calling, and was initially pleased to hear the voice of her uncle.

"Hi, Claire," Peter said. He sounded tired. "Are you doing alright?"

"I'm fine," Claire said. "How about you? Is everything okay?"

Peter hesitated. Over the phone, Claire heard him gulp. When he spoke up again, there was pain in his voice.

"Mom is in the hospital," he said. "She had a stroke. We..." his voice faltered; Claire waited breathlessly for what she already knew he would say next. "...We're not sure if she's going to make it."

Claire drew in a shaky breath. "What hospital is she at?" she asked. "I'll drive right over."

"No need," Peter said. "I can fly you there."

"No, you should stay with your mom," Claire insisted. "Come on, just give me directions and I'll be there in a few hours."

There was another long pause.

"...It's a hospital in New York," Peter said quietly. "If you drive up from LA, it might... it might take too long. By the time you get there, she might..."

Claire swallowed hard. She had known for a long time that Angela was nearing the end of her life, but at the same time, it felt like the kind of thing that was always "going to happen soon", but not something that would ever actually happen. And yet, according to Peter, Angela was currently on her deathbed.

Did she want to see Angela die? No, no, no she didn't. She didn't want to see anyone she cared about die. But she'd have to. In time, she would have to watch everyone die. She didn't want to have to see it, though. When Meredith had died, it had been in a fiery explosion which Claire had seen from a distance. She hadn't been there for Nathan's death at all. In fact, she had never seen anybody she cared about die--at least not permanently--in her life.

She didn't want to start now.

"Just give me the directions," she told Peter. "I'll make it there in time."

He reluctantly gave her directions, and she hopped in the car without telling Gretchen where she was going. Claire was halfway to New York when Peter called her again. Before he could say anything, she knew what he was calling to tell her. Even so, her heart shattered when he spoke the words aloud.

"She's gone, Claire."

"Shit," was all Claire could say.

She was relieved that she hadn't been there to see it.

It was odd, in a way, for Angela not to be alive anymore. Claire had never been very close to her grandmother. When Peter offered her the chance to speak at the funeral, Claire declined. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know exactly what to feel, either. She was sad, sure, but she didn’t feel as sad as she felt like she should have.

When Nathan had died, she’d had people to be angry at about it: Sylar for killing him, Angela for hiding the truth, and Nathan himself for having gotten killed in the first place. But in this case, the only thing to blame was the passage of time, with which Claire already had a complicated enough relationship. More than anything, she just felt numb.

It didn’t help that Noah and Sandra were getting older every day, edging ever closer to the same eventual fate. Noah’s hair thinned out, and he swapped out his signature horn-rimmed glasses for bifocals. Sandra began to lose her hearing, and her hair was slowly turning white. Their skin hung loose in some parts and was stretched tight in others. They looked less like Claire’s parents now and more like grandparents. And there she was, still looking like a fresh-faced college student.

Claire started keeping a syringe in the drawer on her bedside table. If anyone was ever in need of her blood’s healing properties, she could easily take a sample of it and give someone an injection. She didn’t tell Gretchen about this, thinking that her girlfriend wouldn’t understand. She just didn’t want anybody to die on her watch if they didn’t have to. She wanted to keep everyone alive for as long as possible to prolong the amount of time before she would end up alone.

More years went by. Claire was creeping up on thirty now. It was the time of life when most people began to fear getting old, but she feared the exact opposite. One day, she got home from a particularly stressful day of work to find Gretchen pacing back and forth, muttering to herself.

"Hey, babe," Claire said as she stpped into their apartment. "What's up?"

Gretchen locked eyes with her, blushing heavily. She looked almost like a teenage girl again--the way she'd looked when Claire had first met her--they way that Claire wished she didn't still look. They exchanged a brief, nervous smile. Claire didn't know what was going on, but it was clear that Gretchen had something important on her mind.

"You know, Claire, I've been thinking," she began. "We've been together for a long time now, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess we have," Claire muttered. She hadn't given it much thought, but looking at her girlfriend now, the passage of time hit her like a ton of bricks. "Why, are you going to break up with me or something?" she asked, only half-joking. With the way she had been acting lately, so on edge all the time, she wouldn't have blamed Gretchen for growing tired of her.

However, Gretchen shook her head. "Oh, gods, no," she said. "Claire, I... I want to marry you."

Claire blinked, stunned.

"I love you, Claire. I'll always love you," Gretchen went on. "I want us to spend the rest of our lives together."

"The rest of our lives?" Claire echoed.

The phrase rubbed her the wrong way. Gretchen could spend the rest of her life with Claire, but Claire wasn't so sure she could do the same. Still, marriage--it sounded like a dream come true. And regardless of how long either of them lived, Claire couldn't think of anyone else she wanted to marry more than her college girlfriend.

Getting down on one knee, Gretchen reached into her pocket and pulled out a small silver ring. "Claire Bennet, will you be my wife?"

Despite everything, Claire grinned wider than she had in years. Tears sprung up in her eyes as she took in the visage of the woman she loved. No matter how much that face aged, it would always be beautiful.

"Yes," she whispered, barely more than a tiny breath escaping her lips. Then, louder, "yes! Gods, yes, I want to marry you!"

Laughing and crying, they embraced. Their engagement lasted for several months, during which Claire started working another part time job as a waitress and Gretchen started working night shifts at her job as a receptionist so that they could afford the wedding they wanted. The ceremony was held at Kirby Plaza, and they invited as many people as could fit in the venue. It was, and would long remain, the happiest day of Claire's life.

Claire just wished that she could live in that moment forever.

#hey did you know that i write stuff sometimes?#<that's going to be my writing tag i think #heroes #primatech

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princesstadashi · 6 years ago

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Operation Santa Claus: A Christmas Big Hero 6 fic

Right before Christmas, Fred comes to the startling discovery that, thanks to a lot of hard work on Tadashi’s part, Hiro still believes in Santa Claus. With Tadashi gone, now it’s up to Fred and the rest of the team to preserve Hiro’s belief, and maybe, just maybe, along the way encounter a Christmas miracle that none of them ever expected.

(Fred/Tadashi, Fredashi; Honey Lemon/Gogo, Honeygogo mention)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey Hiro!” Fred says, coming up behind the young inventor in his lab at SFIT. “Watcha doing?”

Usually whenever Hiro was hard at work at his desk, he was tinkering with some invention or project, but oddly enough today he was hunched over a piece of paper, seeming deep in thought, and Fred couldn’t help but feel the need to investigate. Ever since his boyfriend, Tadashi, had died earlier on in the year in a tragic accident (well, the fire hadn’t exactly been an accident, but Tadashi’s death at least had not been an intentional result of it) Fred had been making a point of keeping an eye out on his late lover’s little brother.

After the fire had happened, Hiro had been in a really dark place (everyone who had been close to Tadashi had been, really), and while he was doing a lot better now, Fred was doing everything that he could to make sure that Hiro didn’t slide back into the depression that he’d been lost in for so long. Especially with Christmas coming up--the first Christmas the Hiro would be spending without his beloved elder sibling--Fred was keeping an even closer eye on him than before. And seeing the usually constantly-moving teen sitting so quietly with such a pensive look on his face was raising some red flags.

“Oh, hey, Fred!” Hiro looks slightly startled but not displeased as he turns to see the other man standing behind him. “Is everything okay?”

“I was actually about to ask you the same thing, amigo,” Fred answers, coming over to the desk and glancing down at the paper lying on it. “What have you got there?”

“Hey, no peeking!” Hiro cries, quickly flipping the paper over and looking just the tiniest bit defensive.

“Sorry, sorry!” Fred apologizes, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “Didn’t mean to spy on you or anything! Those plans for a secret project?”

“Not exactly…” Hiro mumbles, his cheeks turning slightly red. “It’s just… This sort of thing is supposed to be private, y’know? At least that’s what Tadashi always said… He’d never let me see his, he said that no one is supposed to see the letter but the person you’re sending it to.”

“...Wait... Hiro, are you writing a love letter?” Fred asks, his thoughts racing. Oh gosh, did Hiro have a crush on someone? That would be incredibly adorable! But at the same time it was also terrifying! Hiro was only fourteen--he’d probably been maybe eleven or twelve during the grade in high school when they had sex education. Had he even been allowed to be in the classroom for that lesson? And if not, had anyone given Hiro the talk? If not, was he, Fred, morally obligated to make sure that his young friend was educated about the things that could happen when you were dating someone? The answer was probably yes. Oh man, he was not prepared to give Hiro the talk! Tadashi was supposed to be the one doing this, not him! But there wasn’t really any other option--

“A love letter? Fred, are you crazy? Of course it’s not a love letter!” Hiro cries, looking thoroughly disgusted. “Why the hell would you even think that?”

Well, apparently Fred was, at least for the moment, off the hook, and he breathes a deep sigh of relief.

“Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking!” Fred quickly answers, glad for the timely save. Still, now his curiosity about who the letter was actually for had been piqued and he was determined to find out.

“So, who are you writing to?” he asks, leaning against the desk and getting comfortable, trying to ignore the ache in his heart as he brain helpfully points out how many times he’d been in a similar position with Tadashi.

Part of him expected Hiro to give him a fight about telling him who he was writing to, and Fred was fully prepared to playfully cajole his young friend until he got an answer out of him. The last thing he expected was Hiro to look up at him and answer in the sincerest, most candid voice, as if it should have been perfectly obvious,

“It’s Christmas, isn’t it? I’m writing to Santa.”

“You’re… What?” Fred blinks in surprise. Surely he’d heard that wrong. There was no way that Hiro could have said--

“I’m writing my Christmas letter to Santa,” Hiro repeats, shrugging slightly and looking slightly embarrassed. “I know, I know. It probably seems really stupid and selfish to be writing a Christmas list to Santa this year. I almost didn’t want to. But then I remembered how Tadashi always made sure that I wrote a letter every year, and I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I thought I should go ahead and write it now so Santa has time to get it. I… I know that he probably already knows, but I wanted to make sure that if nothing else he knows why Tadashi… Why Tadashi couldn’t write him a letter this year... I don’t want Santa to think that Tadashi forgot about him or stopped believing in him! Tadashi would never do that!”

Fred feels his mouth gaping open, unable to fully process what he was hearing. Hiro was fourteen years old and far more jaded than even a lot of other teens his age. Plus he was someone who firmly relied on facts and science, someone who would endlessly question something until he got conclusive proof. There was no way that he could really-- He couldn’t actually believe that Santa was-- That Santa was real, right?

“H-Hiro…” Fred starts to stammer out. “Y-You know that Santa… That he’s not--”

“That he’s not what?” Hiro answers, a disarmingly innocent and trusting look on his face that Fred had only ever seen there whenever Hiro was listening to or talking about Tadashi. And Fred felt his heart breaking, because there was no way that he could shatter this illusion for Hiro. He wasn’t sure if Hiro actually believed in Santa, or if this was just something that had been a tradition for the two Hamada brothers that Hiro was still clinging onto (in spite of what logic said) as a last vestige of something that he’d shared with his elder sibling. Whatever the case, Santa was very clearly a major part of the magic of the holiday season for Hiro. And Fred wasn’t about to take that away from him.

“Um, what I was trying to say…” Fred mumbles, trying to think of a way to save this as Hiro’s eyes (usually so full of cynicism and distrust but at the moment oddly soft in an almost childlike way) bore into his rather guilty feeling soul.

“I was just trying to say that Santa’s not going to think that Tadashi forgot about him!” Fred finally manages to blurt out. “O-Of course he won’t, so don’t you even worry about that for a second!”

“Oh! I’m glad to hear that you think so!” Hiro gives him a relieved looking grin. “Still… I think I’ll keep it in the letter, just to be safe…”

“S-Sure, you do that!” Fred agrees before a sudden feeling of dread washes over him as another realization hits him. Tadashi--Tadashi was clearly the reason that Hiro so firmly believed in Santa (if he did actually believe in him, which the evidence did seem to be pointing towards.) For someone as disillusioned with the world as Hiro, there must have been a lot of proof of Santa’s existence being presented to him in order to keep him believing. And Fred had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly who had been “finding” (and quite possibly outright manufacturing) said evidence.

“H-How exactly do you know that Santa’s been to your house on Christmas?” Fred slowly asks.

“Because every year on Christmas he always arrived the same way. Dashi and I would be in our room reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and then we’d hear reindeer hooves on the roof,” Hiro answers, his eyes lighting up. “Tadashi always said it would be rude to go down while Santa was putting out the toys, but after about ten minutes Dashi would finally let us go downstairs and the presents would be under the tree and the cookies would be gone and there’d be a note from Santa thanking us for the cookies. And every year there was always everything on my Christmas list, no matter how weird or obscure--one year I asked for pizza flavor gummy bears just to test him, and there was a whole bag of them! And I always made sure that no one ever saw my list, not even Dashi, so how could it be anyone but Santa?”

“I-I guess that makes sense…” Fred slowly agrees.

“Why? Doesn’t Santa come to your house too?” Hiro asks with a small frown.

“Oh, yeah, totally!” Fred quickly stammers out. “I was just-- I was wanting to compare evidence, is all!”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.” Hiro nods before glancing back down at his list. “So, um…”

“Oh, right!” Fred cries. “Sorry, I’ll, um… I’ll just leave you in peace to keep writing your list! J-Just hit me up if you want to hang out later or something, okay?”

“Sounds good! Thanks, Fred!” Hiro beams at him as the fanboy slowly backs his way out of the office. Fred keeps a smile plastered on his face until he carefully closes the door behind him. And then he takes off running like his life depended on it, because if he was going to make sure that Hiro’s first Christmas without Tadashi wasn’t going to be any more life-shattering than it already probably was going to be, he was going to need a lot of help.

“Guys! Guys! We have a major situation!” Fred cries as he bursts into Honey Lemon’s office where the rest of their friends were all hanging out.

“What is it?” Honey Lemon asks, looking startled as she glances up from her experiment. “Is something wrong?”

“Is there another villain attacking the city?” Gogo asks, dropping her screwdriver and standing up.

“No, it’s nothing like that!” Fred answers, panting and slightly out of breath from his sprint (whew, he definitely needed to exercise more…)

“What is it, then?” Gogo demands as Fred tries to regain the use of his voice. “This better not be one of your stupid pranks because I was right in the middle of--”

“Hiro still believes in Santa!”

“He… What?” Wasabi, who was helping Honey Lemon with her project, blinks rapidly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You can’t be serious.” Gogo crosses her arms over her chest. “Have you met Hiro? There’s no way that he believes in Santa, especially not at his age! Are you sure he wasn’t just pranking you?”

“No, that’s what I thought at first too!” Fred answers. “But he’s completely serious! Apparently Tadashi went to a lot of trouble every year to make sure that Hiro kept believing that Santa is real, and this year he’s not going to be there to do it, and Hiro’s going to be heartbroken if he finds out that Santa isn’t real on his first Christmas without Tadashi! We’ve got to do something about this!”

The others are all silent for a full minute, apparently trying to absorb this new information.

“Okay, so allowing for the possibility that maybe Hiro actually thinks that Santa is real,” Gogo finally says with a frown. “Don’t you think that maybe it’s better for Hiro to learn the truth? He’s got to find out at some point, and maybe it would be best to let him down gently.”

“I would agree that long term that would probably be for the best,” Fred agrees. “But he’s already going to be really emotionally fragile this Christmas without having Tadashi there. You should have seen him writing his letter to Santa, he told me that he was writing to tell him what happened to Tadashi so that Santa wouldn’t think that Tadashi had forgotten him! It would completely crush his spirit to find out that Santa isn’t real this year of all years! Are you guys really okay with that happening?”

“...I don’t know…” Wasabi says uncertainly. “I’d hate for Hiro to have a rough Christmas… But at the same time, Gogo does have a point, he does have to learn the truth at some point…”

“Are you guys really that heartless?” Fred cries. “Don’t you remember how you felt when you found out that Santa wasn’t real?”

“My parents never let us believe in Santa--we were lucky if we even got Christmas presents,” Gogo answers dryly.

“That explains so much... “ Fred quietly mutters.

“What did you just say?” Gogo glares suspiciously at him.

“Nothing!” Fred quickly covers before turning to Wasabi. “What about you?”

“...I think I kind of figured it out for myself when I was six,” Wasabi answers with a shrug. “My parents talked about Santa but eventually my friends stopped believing in Santa so I did too and my parents just kind of let it go.”

“But didn’t that hurt? Letting go of that?” Fred presses.

“Not really? I mean, it’s not like Santa was a huge part of my childhood.”

“Okay, I swear, you guys have no Christmas spirit!” Fred cries before turning to Honey Lemon. “Honey, come on, back me up here! Surely you must have believed in Santa at some point!”

“At some point? I still do!” Honey Lemon answers, a determined smile making its way onto her face. “He just needs a little help sometimes, and I’m totally with you on helping out Hiro, Freddy!”

So that wasn’t exactly the response that Fred had been expecting, but hey, any support that he could get right now he was going to take.

“Okay, so Honey Lemon’s with me!” Fred says, trying to capitalize on his one success. “Come on, guys! I know you might have your doubts about Santa and all of this, but please--you know how freaking amazing Tadashi was and how he never would have done anything that he didn’t think was safe and healthy for Hiro. At least for this year, can’t we trust that he knew what he was doing and carry this on in his place?”

“...All right, fine,” Wasabi sighs in defeat after a moment of silence. “I guess if it’s what Tadashi would have wanted…”

“Thank you!” Fred grins before turning to Gogo. “Gogo? C’mon. Don’t be the only Grinch here!”

“The Grinch is literally the only realistic Christmas character!” Gogo fires back, but Fred could see her resolve starting to slip.

“Gogo. Come on. Please? Please? Please, please, please please, please, plea--”

“Oh, will you just shut the fuck up already?” Gogo snarls. “Why do you have to be so annoying?”

“If I shut up will you agree to help?” Fred bargains.

“Gogo, come on! It’ll be fun, and it’s for a good cause!” Honey Lemon says, coming over to put her hands on her girlfriend’s shoulders.

“...All right, fine, I’ll help!” Gogo groans, and Fred grins victoriously--he should have known that Gogo wouldn’t be able to resist Honey Lemon.

“Yes!” Fred cheers. “Okay, Operation Santa Claus is a go!”

“Do we really need a mission name for this?” Gogo sighs.

“Of course we do!”

“Fine, whatever! But what exactly are you expecting us to do?”

“That--is a very good question that I am going to be very quickly coming up with an answer to!”

The plan, as it turned out, was slightly convoluted, but Fred had a good feeling that it was going to work. He had to enlist Aunt Cass to get her permission to set it into motion, but apparently she’d been well aware of what Tadashi had done every Christmas Eve because she was more than happy to enlist the help of the teens to help make sure the Christmas magic stayed alive for Hiro for at least one more year. It was actually thanks to her help that Hiro’s Christmas list secretly made its way from the mailman (it was a close call, Hiro always purposely gave his Santa letter to the mailman personally to ensure that no one else saw it, and Aunt Cass had had to practically ambush the postman halfway down the street--fortunately he was used to Tadashi doing this every year and, while a bit startled, was glad to help out) and into Fred’s hands.

When Fred opened the letter in the privacy of his own room, he was more than prepared to find absolutely everything on the list for Hiro, no matter how hard he had to work to track it down. What he read, however, he was completely unprepared for.

Dear Santa,

It’s me, Hiro. First of all, I wanted to say sorry again for the whole bot fighting thing. I know that Tadashi told me it was okay to send you a letter back in August apologizing so you’d know about it before Christmas, but I still wanted to apologize and hope that the fact that I’ve haven’t gone to a bot fight in months and that I’m working really hard in school makes up for it.

Um… I’m not really sure how to tell you this, and I know you already probably know but I wanted to tell you personally. Tadashi… Tadashi died this year. He died trying to save someone he thought was innocent and in trouble. Which is why he can’t send you a letter himself this year. I just wanted to make sure that you knew that so you wouldn’t think that he stopped believing in you or anything. And I hope that maybe you can find it in your heart to keep him in a permanent place of honor on the good list because he is the best person to have ever walked on this planet and if anyone deserves it, he does.

Now I know you’re probably still waiting to hear what I want for Christmas. And I know some years I’ve asked for some pretty crazy things, and you’ve always delivered. Santa… I know it’s probably impossible, but I don’t know who else to ask since no one else seems to be listening. I won’t ask for anything else but this one thing. I will gladly trade ever getting any presents from you again in the future if you can somehow, some way, grant my wish. If there’s any way that you can… Could you please, please somehow give me Tadashi back for Christmas? I mean, you’re a saint, right? Saint Nicholas? So maybe you have some kind of pull with whoever’s in charge of that sort of thing?

I know. I know that it’s a really long shot. But I thought I’d just ask anyways because I have nothing else to lose. If nothing else… If there’s any way that you can, could you please find some way to tell Tadashi that I love him and that I miss him, and that even if it’s a long time before I see him again that I’m going to be okay? Thank you. I would really appreciate that.

Yours Sincerely (and Hopefully),

Hiro Hamada

Fred has to put the letter down to avoid the tears rolling down his cheeks from splashing onto the paper. Why? Why had Tadashi of all people had to have been taken away when so many people loved and needed him still? Didn’t whoever was in charge of the universe see just how cruel and unfair that was?

Still. Fred had been through this argument in his head too many times to count, and sitting here crying over Hiro’s letter wasn’t going to make a difference any more than the other times that he’d cried over Tadashi since the fire. Roughly wiping his tears away, he stands up and grabs his coat, his resolve stiffening. Even if he couldn’t get Tadashi back for Hiro, he was going to make sure that Hiro woke up on Christmas morning to the best damn presents that he’d ever gotten. Fred knew that it would in no way make up for the loss that Hiro was facing and that would probably only been multiplied tenfold by the arrival of Christmas morning without his older brother by his side. But it was something small that Fred could do to try to bring some sort of happiness to the holiday for Hiro, and he was going to do it to the damndest of his abilities.

“Fred? What are you doing here? ...And why do you have a suitcase with you?”

Right on schedule, at 5:00 pm on Christmas Eve, Fred was planted on the Hamada’s front door steps. The rest of the team would arrive later to do their parts, but for now Fred was going to get the plan rolling.

“Hey, Hiro!” Fred waves, doing his best to look slightly embarrassed to really sell this. “I kind of um… Well I came over on the chance that maybe you’d be willing to help me out?”

“Help you out?” Hiro repeats. “Is everything okay?”

“Sort of… Well, not really. My parents decided last minute that they were going out of town for Christmas and they’re leaving me all alone at the house since the staff are all going home to their families for the holiday… I really didn’t want to be alone on Christmas so I was wondering if maybe… Maybe you guys would be willing to let me crash at your place? O-Only if it’s not a bother to you!”

“Your parents are leaving you alone? On Christmas?!” Hiro cries, looking a mixture of horrified and slightly enraged.

“Pretty much…” Fred answers, rubbing the back of his neck. The sad thing was, Fred wasn’t lying about being left home alone on Christmas. His dad he could understand--his dad was (secretly) an international superhero and had confided to him that he was in a very delicate stage of helping a guy that he’d rescued from some accident a few months ago and patched up in his secret super base to recover in time to get home to his own family for Christmas. His dad had promised to be home for Christmas night after returning the poor guy to his family in order to spend Christmas with his own son, and Fred was more than happy to give up a bit of time with his dad in order for someone else to be able to be back with their own family, and this worked perfectly with the plans he’d made with Aunt Cass to help Hiro have at least one more magical, Santa-filled Christmas.

His mom, on the other hand… As usual, she was just off on some fancy vacation in Europe--or maybe it was Hawaii? Fred couldn’t really be bothered to keep track of where she was at this point. She’d long since made it clear that she didn’t give a flying fuck about her son, and so Fred did his best to tell himself that he gave zero fucks about her either. It wasn’t exactly true, but he was trying to believe it, anyways. He was incredibly grateful that Aunt Cass had told him that, even if it hadn’t been for Operation Santa Claus, she would have been glad to have him stay with the family anyways. Fred didn’t know if she suspected the fact that he and Tadashi had been dating (the two had never really had the chance to go public before the fire and the only person he’d ever confessed the fact to was Hiro), but it was still nice to know that she considered him a part of the family, even if she didn’t know the full truth.

“Oh my gosh…” Hiro breathes, shaking his head, before swinging the door further open. “Shit, yeah, come right in! L-Let me just go check with Aunt Cass to make sure that she’s okay with it, but as far as I’m concerned you’re more than welcome to stay with us for the holidays--and as long as you need to, even after that!”

“Thanks, Hiro, you’re the best,” Fred says with a grateful smile.

“Hey, of course!” Hiro gently nudges Fred’s arm. “Anything to help out a friend.”

Fred breathes a sigh of relief as Hiro heads down the stairs to the Cafe to talk to Aunt Cass--thank goodness, he’d managed to plant himself, and Hiro didn’t suspect a thing! Now as long as the rest of the night went just as smoothly, they might actually be able to pull this off! But in the meantime…

Casting a wary glance down the stairs, Fred quickly unzips his suitcase and starts emptying out the wrapped presents for Hiro, moving them into the designated linen cabinet that Aunt Cass had cleared out for him to hide the packages in so that Honey Lemon and Wasabi could sneak in later to hide them under the tree after “Santa” arrived.

He was just finishing up when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Panicking slightly, he shoves the last present in with a little more force than was strictly speaking necessary and shuts the door behind him.

“Hey, so I just talked to Aunt Cass and she said that it’s totally fine for you to stay here!” Hiro says as he comes running back up the stairs, a grin on his face. “Come on, you can stay upstairs with me!”

“Thank you, I really, really appreciate this!” Fred tells him, trying to hide the fact that he was slightly out of breath as he follows Hiro up the stairs, dragging his now considerably lighter suitcase behind him.

“Fred, you’re family,” Hiro answers firmly as they reach the top of the stairs. “There’s no way that I’m letting you be alone on Christmas! Besides… I-I think Tadashi would like to know that we’re spending Christmas together this year. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Fred agrees, trying to fight down the lump that had risen in his throat. “I-I think so too…”

Hiro nods in response, just standing there for a moment with his shoulders slumped and looking so small and incredibly lost that it was all Fred could do not to just pull him into a tight hug and tell him that everything was somehow going to be okay, as much as this holiday was going to hurt for both of them. But before he could give into the impulse, Hiro jerks upright, his eyes going wide as he cries out, “Oh my gosh! I just realized-- If you’re not at your house, how is Santa going to know where to bring your gifts?”

“It’s not a problem, amigo,” Fred hurries to reassures him. “We have a tree at home, and I’m sure that Santa will leave the presents there for me so I can open them whenever I get back home!”

“Well that royally sucks.” Hiro frowns. “Maybe Santa will realize that you’re staying with us and bring them here instead…”

“Oh, no, um, I think my dad’s going to try to be home late Christmas night so it’s okay for Santa to leave them at my house so I can open them with him when he gets home!” Fred quickly answers. Shit, he couldn’t have Hiro wondering why his presents weren’t under the tree on Christmas morning!

“That works, I guess,” Hiro agrees with a slow nod, seeming pacified by that answer. “Well, you can at least you can still celebrate Christmas morning with us!”

“Exactly!” Fred agrees before asking, “So, were you in the middle of anything when I showed up? I know that I kind of came here totally unannounced…”

“I was actually just decorating the cookies for Santa!” Hiro answers with a grin. “Do you want to help me?”

“Heck yeah, I’d love to, little dude!” Fred grins back at him.

“Awesome! Let’s go, then!” Hiro turns to head back down the stairs and, content that the plan was progressing as smoothly as it could for the moment, Fred follows after him, praying that somehow he’d actually manage to pull this all off.

The rest of the evening was spent in a rather peaceful manner--or as peaceful as it could get for Fred, who was silently starting to panic over just how many things could go wrong tonight. Still, Hiro seems blissfully unaware of his silent turmoil as they finish decorating the cookies and then spend the rest of the evening watching cheesy holiday movies with Aunt Cass once she’s come up to join them after closing the cafe early for the holidays. It was around ten o’clock that Aunt Cass announces that it was bedtime, giving Fred a meaningful look as she reminds the two boys that Santa wouldn’t come until everyone was safely tucked up in their beds.

“Right!” Hiro agrees, eagerly bouncing out of his chair. “C’mon, Fred! Let’s go get ready for bed so Santa can come!”

“Right behind you!” Fred answers, nodding quickly to Aunt Cass before following Hiro up the stairs.

The two boys take turns in the bathroom changing into their pajamas and getting ready for bed. Fred went after Hiro, and when he exits the bathroom, he finds Hiro standing in the middle of the bedroom, shuffling his feet a bit awkwardly and holding a children’s storybook in his hands.

“Um… Fred?” he says quietly. “I-I know it might be a bit weird, but Tadashi would always read this with me every Christmas Eve… D-Do you think that maybe you…?”

“Hiro, I would be honored,” Fred reassures him, secretly relieved--since Hiro was asking, he wouldn’t have to find some way to bring this up himself! He knew that Hiro had said that the story was an important part of the brothers’ Santa tradition, and he was glad that Hiro felt comfortable enough with him to ask him to read it in Tadashi’s stead.

The two boys take a few minutes to construct a very basic pillow fort (apparently this was a part of the Hamada bros’ Christmas tradition as well), and then while Hiro was getting settled in Fred covertly gets his phone ready to secretly send the text to alert Gogo, who was currently waiting on the roof to make the tell-tale reindeer hoof sounds, when the time was right to start the next phase of Operation Santa Claus.

“You ready to start?” Fred asks once Hiro seemed comfortable, almost holding his breath as he prepares to open the book.

“Yeah. I think I am,” Hiro answers, and for just a moment Fred thought he saw the tiniest hint of something that oddly enough looked like fear in his eyes. But a smile quickly replaces any sign of concern and Fred, deciding that he’d imagined it, turns to the first page and begins to read.

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”

Just before he reached the line about “there arose such a clatter”, Fred sent off the text to Gogo to let her know that it was time to start, so just as he started to read it the sound of what to the unknowing ear would certainly sound like reindeer hooves started coming from the roof above them.

“Whoa!” Hiro gasps, eyes going wide as he glances upwards. “N-No way!”

“It sounds like Santa’s arrived!” Fred says with a grin, getting caught up in the moment and for just a moment almost forgetting that it was actually Gogo up there and not Santa’s team.

“Y-Yeah, sounds like it!” Hiro agrees, his eyes shining as he grins back up at him.

“C’mon, let’s finish the story--we’ve gotta follow Tadashi’s rule and not disturb Santa while he’s working, right?” Fred says, gesturing to the book.

“Definitely!” Hiro agrees, to Fred’s surprise but not at all displeasure actually snuggling up against his side. Beaming, Fred wraps an arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulling him close as he reads.

It had been exactly ten minutes since the arrival of “Santa” (plenty of time for Santa’s helpers downstairs to have put out the presents and made themselves scarce) and it was all going beautifully as, after the last clopping of reindeer hooves on the rooftop faded away (this time in “takeoff”), Fred had finally agreed with Hiro that it was safe for them to head downstairs to take a look at the tree. But just as they reached the bedroom door, Fred heard the sound of something slipping down the rooftop, followed by some rather choice-sounding oaths that were most definitely not being made by jolly old Saint Nick, and finally a loud cry and a crunching sound.

“What the hell?” Hiro cries, turning back around. “What was that?”

“I-I’m sure it was nothing!” Fred quickly tries to turn him back towards the stairs. “Come on, let’s go downstairs to see--”

But Hiro was too fast for him, and he slips under his arms, racing over to the door that led onto the outdoor patio garden, gaping as he looks up to see--

“G-Gogo? What are you doing hanging from my roof?” Hiro stammers as he stares up at Gogo, who was hanging from the gutter bordering the roof with both hands.

“Uh, hey, Hiro,” Gogo says with a slightly guilty smile. “I was just--y’know, out for an evening patrol and thought I’d stop by to say hi?”

“But you’re not wearing your superhero suit,” Hiro says suspiciously, and Fred could clearly see the gears turning in the teen’s head.

“Hiro, I’m sure that there’s a perfectly good explanation for this--” Fred quickly tries to divert his attention, but before he could say anything more Hiro turns and races back into the house and down the stairs.

“Hiro, no, wait!” Fred cries, chasing after him.

“It’s fine, I’ll just figure out how to get down myself, thanks!” he hears Gogo calling after him, but he couldn’t turn around to help her. He had to head Hiro off. If the others hadn’t actually left yet--!

By the time he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he realizes with a sinking heart that the damage had already been done. Honey Lemon and Wasabi were standing half in and half out of the door, seeming frozen as Hiro stares them down, his mouth hanging open in silent shock.

“I-I can’t believe this…” Hiro was the one to finally break the silence, shaking his head and, to Fred’s horror, tears seeming to be welling up in his eyes. “A-All of you… Y-You did this?”

“Hiro, I’m so sorry,” Fred whispers, slowly making his way towards Hiro and vaguely aware of Gogo arriving at the bottom of the stairs, apparently having managed to safely get the rest of the way down from the roof. “W-We just wanted to try to make sure that this Christmas was as close to the ones that you had with Tadashi as possible… We didn’t mean for you to find out that Santa doesn’t really exist this way…”

“Wait… What?” Hiro turns to him, eyes flashing with confusion. “What do you mean by tha-- Oh. Oh! Oh my gosh… Fred, d-did you think that I actually still believe in Santa?”

“...Wait, you mean that you don’t?” Fred cries, feeling like his entire world had been turned on its head for the second time in far too short a period of time.

“Of course not!” Hiro shakes his head. “I figured out that Santa isn’t real and that it was Tadashi behind all of this stuff when I was, like, eight! But Tadashi always went all out trying to make Santa real for me every year, so I just went along with it because it made him happy and it made the holidays more fun for both of us. I was keeping it up this year because it helped me feel close to him… I-I had no idea that you would take me seriously and try to do all of this yourselves! You seriously almost made me think that there were reindeer on the roof for a minute there because I didn’t know what else it could be without that robot Tadashi made to make the hoofbeat sounds on the roof in action!”

“...So you mean I risked my life going up on the roof to make stupid reindeer sounds for nothing?!” Gogo cries, glaring at Fred.

“Not for nothing!” Hiro quickly answers before Fred can try to come up with a response to that. “Definitely not for nothing. I-I was so afraid that this Christmas… That it was going to be so hard, not having Tadashi here with me to make everything as special and magical as it always was and to share everything with me… But now I can see that I was totally wrong about that. I have the best family of friends ever who are willing to literally risk their necks to make sure that I still had an amazing Christmas. And you have no idea how much that means to me…”

“Awww, Hiro!” Honey Lemon beams and goes over to pull him into a big bear hug, and somehow before he could even realize what was happening Fred found himself in the middle of a group hug centered around Hiro.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you guys…” Hiro murmurs with a somewhat wet sounding laugh.

“Well you don’t have to imagine that because you’re never going to have to be without us,” Fred reassures him, hugging him closer.

“Yeah, I know. And that’s pretty much the best Christmas present that I could ask for this year…” Hiro agrees, smiling up at him through the tears that were starting to leak out. Fred was starting to feel a little teary eyed himself, but if there was anything that this whole experience had taught him it was that, no matter how hard, with all of them together there wasn’t anything that they couldn’t face.

The others had already headed home to get some much needed shut-eye before celebrating the holiday with their own families in the morning and both Fred and Hiro were half-dozing sitting in front of the fireplace, silently enjoying the comfort of being in each others’ presence on their first Christmas Eve without Tadashi, when they were both startled awake by the sound of someone knocking on the front door.

“What the heck?” Fred mutters, turning towards the source of the noise. “Who on Earth would be knocking this late at night? Hiro, you and Aunt Cass didn’t invite anyone else over, did you?”

“No, definitely not,” Hiro answers with a concerned frown. “I guess maybe one of the neighbors saw Gogo up on the roof and came to investigate? Or… Oh jeez, hopefully they didn’t call the police thinking she was trying to break in or something…”

“Tell you what, you stay here and let me go answer it,” Fred says. “If it is the police I’ll explain what happened, and if we need Aunt Cass to corroborate the story you can run and get her.”

“Okay.” Hiro nods, seeming glad that he wouldn’t have to get up from his warm patch of floor. “Just shout if you need me, okay?”

“Okay,” Fred agrees, and, not wanting to keep whoever was at the door waiting, finally goes to answer it.

“Hello, can I help yo--” Fred starts to say as he cracks the door open, only for his voice to trail off completely as his eyes take in the man standing on the front stoop. No. No way. There was not possible way that this was real!

“Merry Christmas, Fred,” Tadashi says softly, and his voice was so sincere, his eyes so gentle and warm that it didn’t seem possible that he wasn’t real.

Still, Fred thinks, mentally shaking himself, the team had been burned before by villains trying to make fake copies of Tadashi to get to them. How was he supposed to believe that this was the real Tadashi? And, even it wasn’t a copy, what if it was some Christmastime phantom, like in the Charles Dicken’s story? The spirits had showed up for Scrooge on Christmas Eve, right? Could the same thing be happening here?

“Y-You… A-Are you a ghost?” Fred finally manages to get out--it was the first coherent sentence that would come out of his mouth.

“Hardly,” Tadashi chuckles warmly, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Are you sure?” Fred asks--he knew that it was a stupid question, but it’s the only thing he could think of to say.

“Pretty sure,” Tadashi answers with a lopsided grin. “But if you’d like to test that theory…”

And before Fred could even realize what was happening, Tadashi was wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him into an open mouthed kiss, and all of Fred’s worries were instantly swept away as he melts into it. With as closely as he and Tadashi had kept their secret, there was no way that anyone could have made a copy that knew about the two of them being in love. And this kiss was kriffing real as rain--no fake or ghost could kiss as good as the real Tadashi.

“Fred? Fred, what’s going on?” Fred could distantly hear Hiro’s worried voice calling from behind him, but he was way too far gone to be able to form a coherent answer. He would have gone on kissing Tadashi all night if he’d been able to have his way, but unfortunately for him Tadashi had other plans, and he gently pulls away from Fred, despite Fred’s soft whimper of protest.

“Don’t worry,” Tadashi gently whispers in his ear. “We’ll have plenty of time to finish this later.”

“‘Kay,” Fred breathes--as long as he had the promise of being able to pick this kiss back up, he could be unselfish for a bit.

Knowing that Hiro couldn’t see Tadashi and was probably very concerned about what was taking him so long, Fred pushes the door further open to allow Tadashi inside.

“D-Dashi?” Hiro whispers, eyes going wide as he takes in the sight of his older brother for the first time. “W-What-- H-How-- Y-You’re dead! You can’t be here!”

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m not dead,” Tadashi answers with a grin, walking over to Hiro and scooping him up into a tight hug.

“B-But how are you here? I-It’s not possible…” Hiro seemed to be trying to resist, but he was quickly losing the battle of melting into his elder sibling’s embrace.

“Let’s just say that Santa’s been spending the last couple months fixing me up in his workshop and he’s been working really hard to get me home in time for Christmas,” Tadashi answers, gently ruffling Hiro’s hair. “You didn’t think that Santa would let you down this year, did you? Hasn’t he always gotten you everything that you asked for?”

“...That is easily the most bs thing you have ever said to me…” Hiro says, shaking his head and burying his face into Tadashi’s chest, visibly trembling as he pulls his brother closer.

“Hey, swear jar!” Tadashi lightly scolds his younger brother without any real anger, arms tightening around him. “I know it’s Christmas Eve, but it’s not too late for Santa to bring you coal, y’know?”

“Shut up about Santa already!” Hiro’s hands curl even tighter into the coat that Tadashi was wearing. “H-How do I know that it’s really you? H-How do I know that you’re not another fake?”

“Oh, otouto…” One of Tadashi’s hands starts automatically stroking the younger boy’s hair, the other rubbing gentle circles on his back. “I heard about those… I’m so, so sorry that someone tried to use something that looked like me to hurt you… But I swear, it really is me…”

“Prove it!” Hiro cries, starting to pull away, tears rolling down his cheeks and suspicion flashing in his eyes. “T-Tell me how you’re actually here!”

“I-I want to, Hiro,” Tadashi answers, a guilty look crossing his face. “But the person who patched me up pretty much swore me to secrecy because no one’s really supposed to know that he’s still active as a hero… It’s for his safety as well as ours. I-Is there anything else that I can do to prove it to you?

A retired hero? Fred wonders. What retired hero would have been in town during the time of the Expo fire and could have somehow saved Tadashi?

And then he remembers what his dad had said about the guy who had been recovering in his lab and who he’d been trying to get home in time for Christmas. No way. No freaking way. Had his dad actually--?

“Hiro,” Fred says softly. “I-I think I may know who it was who saved Tadashi…”

“You do?” Hiro stares up at him in disbelief before demanding, “If you know who it was, then tell me!”

“I-I can’t do that, Hiro,” Fred sighs, shaking his head. “I’m sorry… I-I think maybe it’s best to just go with saying that it was Santa after all.”

“But how do we know for sure that this is really Tadashi?” Hiro growls, growing more agitated by the minute and tears starting to fill his eyes. And who could blame him? He’d had his heart broken so many times that the idea of losing another Tadashi was probably about to send him right over the edge.

“Hiro… He, um…. He kind of kissed me when I answered the door?” Fred answers quietly, his cheeks burning. “And no one but you and me know about the fact that Tadashi and I were--I mean are dating? None of those copies have ever known about that, right?”

“T-That is true…” Hiro agrees slowly, looking back up at Tadashi with some degree of hope returning to his eyes. “I-I don’t think that anyone else has figured that out before…”

“Wait, told him we were dating?” Tadashi squawks, looking over at Fred in disbelief.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to out you but I thought you were dead!” Fred cries. “Do you know what it was like having to act like I wasn’t dying inside from losing the love of my life?!”

“...F-Fred…” Tadashi gasps softly, his eyes going wide. “You… I-I’m the love of your life?”

“Of course you are,” Fred answers, shaking his head and trying to hold back tears of his own. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to spend the rest of my life with!”

“Oh my gosh…” Tadashi breathes before learning over towards Fred, and without even thinking about the consequences Fred starts to lean in too, his eyes sliding shut--

“Okay, ew, gross, no, no kissing over me!” Hiro cries, startling the two of them apart. “I get it, obviously Fred trusts you! And… That’s pretty good evidence since Tadashi actually knows that the two of you were dating… But… I still need just a bit more proof to make sure… I’ve seen some really, really convincing fakes before, okay?”

“What do I need to do or say for you to trust me, otouto?” Tadashi asks softly. “I’ll do anything for you to be able to accept that I’m actually here with you. I don’t want to see you having to live with the pain of losing me any longer…”

Hiro’s face scrunches up with concentration and then finally he answers, “...Tell me something that only you and I would know. Something that no one--not any of our friends, not Fred, not Aunt Cass, not even something that could have been recorded by Baymax--would have been able to find out.”

A look of relief crosses Tadashi’s face. “That, I can do,” he says gently before leaning in and whispering something in Hiro’s ear so softly that even Fred, as close as he was sitting to them, couldn’t hear it.

When Tadashi pulls away, Hiro was silent for a full minute, seeming to be processing whatever Tadashi had just said. And then a grin crosses his face and he wraps his arms tightly around Tadashi and burying his face into his chest. “I-It really is you, Dashi…”

“It is, Hiro.” A relieved grin crosses Tadashi’s face as he pulls Hiro closer. “It really, truly is.”

“Oh my gosh… Oh my gosh, Dashi, you’re here,” Hiro whispers, his voice cracking in a way that made Fred’s heart ache for him. But he knew that Tadashi’s hugs were the best cure for what Hiro was experiencing right now, and so he sits silently to let the brothers work everything out in the way that they needed to right now.

“I’ve missed you so, so much,” he hears Hiro murmuring into Tadashi’s chest as the two siblings hold each other. “I’ve missed you every single day that you’ve been gone…”

“I know,” Tadashi answers, gently stroking Hiro’s hair. “I’ve missed you so much too… I would have come back sooner but apparently I was in a coma for a good month or two, and I just barely finally got to the point where it was safe for me to travel home tonight…”

“Y-You were in a coma?” Hiro gasps, and Fred couldn’t help but feel his own heart clench at that.

“Partially medically induced while I was healing,” Tadashi answers quietly. “Apparently I got myself burned up pretty badly, I still don’t know how ‘Santa’ got me patched up as well as he did…”

He hangs his head as he adds so softly that Fred could barely hear him, “I-I’m still so, so sorry for what happened… So sorry to both of you.” He looks up at Fred, guilt written clearly across his face. “I-I don’t blame either of you if you don’t forgive me for what I did…”

“Sorry for what, Dashi?” Hiro asks. “You didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I was stupid enough to run into that fire when there was no way that I could have actually saved anyone!” Tadashi answers, shaking his head. “And with everything I put all of you through thanks to me trying to be a hero…”

“Oh, Dashi, no!” Fred wraps his arms around Tadashi, pressing a quick but fervent kiss to his cheek. “Tadashi, you were only trying to help someone who was in danger! How could we blame you for being so selfless!”

“A lot of good being selfless did,” Tadashi quietly mutters. “The guy I was trying to save returned the favor by trying to kill all of you!”

Okay, so apparently Fred’s dad had filled Tadashi in on the events following the fire. Fred would have preferred to find a gentler way to break the news to him, but now that the secret was out they’d just have to work with what they had.

Fred was just trying to think of a good response to that when Hiro piped up, “Tadashi, please, don’t blame yourself for that! I know it’s not easy… Trust me, I spent the month after you d-di… Well, after the fire… Locking myself away because I blamed myself for not holding you back and keeping you from running into the Expo hall in the first place… But I just made myself even more miserable and hurt all of our friends...Blaming yourself doesn’t help, and I don’t want to lose you again now that I have you back because you’re mad at yourself for something that already happened and you can’t change!”

“Yeah, what he said!” Fred quickly agrees when he sees Tadashi turning a questioning gaze to him. “I-I can’t say it as nicely as Hiro did, but I fully and completely agree with him! I was so scared that we’d lost Hiro too after we thought that we’d lost you… I-I don’t want to see you spending all your time feeling guilty about what happened when none of us are upset with you. We just want to have you back in our lives and know that you’re okay and happy, and that’s the only thing that we would ever want from you.”

“...When did you guys get so smart?” Tadashi murmurs as he wraps his arms around the both of them, his shoulders sinking in defeat, and Fred nuzzles up against him, extremely glad to find that Tadashi was apparently listening to them.

“We learned from the best,” Hiro laughs, also nuzzling into Tadashi.

“Aww!” Tadashi beams as he pecks Hiro on the top of his head and Fred on the cheek. “I seriously don’t know what I did to deserve both of you…”

Fred was about to go into exactly what Tadashi had done to deserve them when he hears the sound of Aunt Cass’ bedroom door opening and a voice calling, “Boys, I know that it’s technically Christmas morning but could you please wait a few hours before being so loud and waking me up?”

Fred didn’t even have time to think of a way to prepare her before she came shuffling into the living room in a red silk robe and fluffy calico cat slippers. For a moment her eyes, half closed with sleep, didn’t seem to fully be processing what she was seeing. But then they fly open and a half-strangled cry comes out of her mouth as her hands clamp over her mouth.

“Aunt Cass!” Tadashi stands to greet her, and the other two men quickly move to give him room to move.

“Aunt Cass, it’s okay,” Tadashi says gently when she fails to respond, just staring at him as if she was looking at a ghost--which, it was quite possible was exactly what she thought she was seeing. “It’s really me, I promise. Santa brought me home just in time for Christmas.”

He wraps his arms tightly around her, and Fred could hear the muffled sobs as she hugs him back.

“It’s really him, Aunt Cass!” Hiro pipes up, obviously trying to help. “It’s the real Tadashi!”

“My baby…Oh, sweetie,” Aunt Cass finally whispers, reaching a visibly shaking hand up to stroke Tadashi’s cheek. “Oh, my angel came home…”

“Yeah, I’m home, Aunt Cass,” Tadashi reassures her, lightly kissing the top of her head as he hugs her closer. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back, but I’m home now, and I’m not planning to leave any time soon.”

Fred sees Hiro going over to join the rest of his family and, feeling a bit like an intruder on this family moment, he slips into the kitchen, deciding that it would be best to give them some privacy. He was far too charged up and antsy to just stand idly by, so he heads over to the kitchen cabinets and starts working on making a pot of hot cocoa, figuring that everyone could probably use something warm and sugary after this unexpected (not at all unwanted, but definitely shocking) turn of events.

He had just removed the pot of finished cocoa from the burner on the stove and was starting to search for mugs to pour it into when he feels a pair of arms wrapping around his waist from behind and a chin coming to rest on his shoulder.

“Hey.” Tadashi’s warm breath tickles his ear. “What are you doing in here? A-Are you not happy to see me?” His tone was playful, but Fred could hear the very real fear it in.

“Oh, Dashi…” Fred turns so that he could wrap his arms around him in a proper hug. “I am so, so happy to see you… Y-You have no idea how happy… I just didn’t want to intrude on you and your family…”

“Freddy…” A relieved smile crosses Tadashi’s face as he takes Fred by the back of the neck. “That was very sweet of you, but you do know that you’re a part of this family, right?”

“I--” Before Fred could answer that, Tadashi had pulled him into a deep, knee-melting kiss that silenced any concerns or objections he might have had.

“C’mon,” Tadashi whispers huskily in his ear when he finally pulls away, leaving Fred light headed and feeling like the room was spinning. “Let’s go make this official.”

“W-What?” Fred stammers faintly, but before he could press for more details, Tadashi was leading him back out into the living room, his arm wrapped firmly around his waist for support.

“Aunt Cass?” he hears Tadashi saying. “There’s something that Fred and I wanted to tell you before… Well, before the fire. And I’m sorry we never got to tell you before, but I want you to know the truth, because Fred deserves to know he’s as much a part of this family as me and Hiro.”

Oh gosh. Fred felt the blood rushing in his ears, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. He and Tadashi had agreed that they were going to tell Aunt Cass about their relationship after the Expo, and he had absolutely no problem with anyone knowing that he was gay. But Tadashi hadn’t been sure how accepting Aunt Cass would be, and that had been part of the reason they’d waited for so long. Was Tadashi really willing to get kicked out right after getting home, just so he could publically be with him?

“We’re dating, Aunt Cass.”

Okay, apparently he was. And as Fred presses up against his boyfriend’s side, waiting to hear Aunt Cass’ reaction, he was pretty sure that he’d never been more in love with him

“You two… Are dating?” Aunt Cass finally repeats slowly.

“Yes,” Tadashi answers, placing a quick but still tender kiss on Fred’s cheek and squeezing his hands. “And I love him very, very much.”

Fred nods in agreement, for once in his life unable to speak, waiting to hear how Aunt Cass was going to take all of this. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Hiro standing with his hands clenched, clearly ready to step in if things got nasty, and Fred was incredibly grateful to know that Hiro, at least, accepted him as part of their family.

Aunt Cass was silent for a moment more, and then a grin spreads across her face as she stands up from the couch.

“Oh, I knew it! I knew there was something going on between you two!” she cries, coming over and wrapping her arms around both of them. “I’m so happy that you finally told me! And Fred, I hope that you know that of course you’re a part of this family! Even if you and Tadashi weren’t dating, and especially with everything that you’ve done for Hiro, I absolutely consider you one of my own.”

“T-Thank you…” Fred manages to get out, hugging her tightly and fighting back tears. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve such a wonderful family taking him in like this, but he was more grateful than he could express to them for loving him so much.

“Okay, okay, enough mushiness!” Hiro says after giving them what he clearly thought was ample time to have processed their emotions. “I don’t think that any of us are going back to sleep at this point, so let’s go ahead and celebrate Christmas!”

“Usually I’d say that you should at least try to get some more sleep in, but sadly I think you’re right about none of us falling asleep any time soon,” Tadashi admits with a laugh as Aunt Cass finally lets him and Fred go.

“I’ll go pour the cocoa I made and then Hiro can unwrap his presents,” Fred chuckles.

“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere, mister!” Aunt Cass says firmly. “I’ll pour the cocoa, I’m sure you and Tadashi have a lot of lost time to make up for!”

“Well, I guess she approves of us dating,” Tadashi says as she heads into the kitchen, grinning over at Fred.

“I guess so,” Fred agrees, beaming and gently leaning against Tadashi’s side, only to sit right back up again as he sees Hiro going to sit by the pile of presents under the tree.

“Oh my gosh! Dashi, I’m so sorry, I just realized that none of us got you any presents for Christmas… I-If we’d known that you would be here…”

“Presents? That is seriously the last thing on my list of priorities right now,” Tadashi chuckles warmly before gently tilting Fred’s chin up so that he was within kissing distance, his breath lightly ghosting across Fred’s lips. “Besides. I have Aunt Cass and Hiro, and I have you. What more could I ever want than that? Just being back with all of you is the best Christmas present that I could ever ask for.”

“Yeah,” Fred agrees, a grin crossing his face as Tadashi pulls him in for another kiss. “Having you back is everything I could have asked for this year too.”

#big hero 6 christmas #fredashi #honeygogo #hamada bros

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